Page 54 of Blood from the Marrow
The touch was so soft, Elena had to fight the desire to flinch. Not because she didn’t want it, but because it still frightenedher to know how much she needed it. Because it forced her to consider what she’d do if she lost it.
Elena covered Marisol’s hand with hers and turned it over, looking at her palm. She’d smelled her blood the moment it spilled but Zuri hadn’t allowed her to race up the tower to see why.Let her, she repeated to herself. Was she supposed to lead an army against Sayah when she allowed a witch to command her?
Her chest heaved. If her heart was only hers, it would surely have broken under the weight of her grief by now.
“What did she do?” Elena asked, trying to keep the harshness out of her tone.
“I think she made it so we could access her archive,” Marisol replied, attention jumping from Elena to Hel.
While Librada steered them out of the maze of watery hazards and through the blinding fog that made Elena want to crawl out of her skin to escape the sensory deprivation, Marisol told them what she’d learned in some hidden chamber in Sabina’s tower.
Elena didn’t know Sabina enough to trust her. The vampire hadn’t left The Order since well before they took over the monastery. She couldn’t decide whether it was a show of good faith that Sabina had given Marisol the key to her private space or whether it could have marked her as a target in some way. Elena preferred to think about that than the horrors someone enshrined in ancient pots.
Music and conversation and motorized boats filled the night air as they approached Venice again. Elena’s anxiety settled against her will. She’d always loved this city. It had been her sanctuary after she’d lost Zuri and she hadn’t ever imagined returning with her.
“This is your house?” Marisol asked, eyes wide while she peered up at the detached villa on the canal. “It looks like a museum or...”
“It’s always felt more like the palazzo of a shamed, black-sheep aristocrat to me,” Zuri joked, standing when Librada steered the boat between the striped mooring posts in front of the house. “Like a marquis with a sex scandal.”
Elena followed Marisol’s gaze to the carved, pale stone facade rising from the water. Four stories of high-arched windows and two stubby balconies that someone had probably spent months perfecting. The kind of details that cost more than most people made in a lifetime, though Elena had stopped thinking about money in those terms decades ago.
In the end, it was just another place to sleep. Somewhere to store her things between the stretches of years when she couldn’t bear to stay still. For the first time in her second life, opulence seemed more like a waste than a display of power. Unnecessary when the only things that mattered were crammed together in a small boat.
Sofia leapt onto the narrow platform, tying the rope to the post before pressing her thumb to the keypad to unlock the gate protecting the door. Elena kept her eyes and ears trained on the canal. There was little movement in the residential quarter and she was ready for the slightest change. When everyone was safely inside, Elena followed.
“Jesus,” Marisol gasped, standing in theatriobecause she hadn’t made it more than three steps from the doorway. “Are you freaking kidding me with this?”
Elena looked around the space. From intricately designed marble floors to layered tray ceilings circling the glass chandelier that had once hung in the Palace of Versailles, it was perfect.Hadbeen perfect.
“Wait until you see this, Bambi.” Zuri slipped her hand in Marisol’s and led her away.
Elena’s chest tightened, skin warming. She knew exactly where Zuri was taking her and she was eager to follow, but she had something to do first.
“There’s probably a rather posh terrace somewhere around here,” Hel said when Elena started toward her daughters. “I’ll go find it.”
Librada and Sofia stood together near the elevator no one ever used.
“I explicitly told you to remain in Miami,” Elena said, voice as cold and brittle as she could make it. It was an impression of the disappointment she didn’t feel.
Sofia cast her gaze to her feet looking every bit the scolded child. The memory of her bleeding in an alleyway in Rome flashed in Elena’s mind. She’d always been a fearless girl, even at two hundred years old.
“Did you know about this?” Elena turned her question to Librada.
Librada replied with the quickest shake of her head. She didn’t want to betray her sister, but she didn’t want to disappoint Elena either.
“So you disobeyed me all on your own?” Elena rested her hands on her hips. “Decided, without consulting anyone but yourself, that you knew better than me.” She didn’t have the energy to pretend. “Looks like we’re lucky that you did.”
Sofia’s attention snapped up from the floor, her face wearing the same confusion as Librada’s.
“You were there to help your sister protect… everything that’s valuable to me.”
“We’re family,” Sofia said, attention darting to the archway Zuri had taken Marisol through.
Librada’s posture tightened, but Elena recognized her need to stifle emotion. The one she couldn’t get out of her eyes. “A family protects each other,” she echoed.
Elena struggled to take a full inhale. “Go on,” she said before her daughters saw her crying and lost complete faith in her. “We leave at sundown tomorrow. No excuses. And no leaving the house,” she said seriously, gaze on Sofia. “I will not have you alone?—”
“I will not leave you,” Sofia vowed, confidence unwavering.
