Page 69 of Blood from the Marrow
She was to her shoulder when hit solid stone. Panting and covered in dirt, Elena kissed the pin and covered it under a mound of rocks. It was the only burial site her daughter would have.
With both hands, she poured the dirt back in. With every handful she returned, she added her sadness and pain and regret and fear. When she was done, she sat back on her heels, her hands filthy and her chest hollow. She could almost feel Narine’s presence, hear her regret. Eyes closed, Elena forgave her.
Conversation carried on the salty wind reminded Elena that she wasn’t alone. She stood, jaw tightening and tears drying in the taunting ocean breeze.
Sayah had done this, and Elena wasn’t going to let this happen again. Wasn’t going to let her destroy anything else. Anyone else. Whatever guilt, whatever grief, whatever regret she’d been carrying, she was leaving it there. Buried and locked in a stone crypt.
Elena bit down on the venom filling her mouth. It was time to answer Sayah’s violence with her own. To make Sayah curse the day she first drew breath and every moment after.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zuri droppedinto the deck chair beneath a white umbrella, iced coffee in hand. If there was one plus to being trapped in a fortress crammed full of strange vampires, it was having the pool all to herself in the morning.
Even though she was pretty sure none of the cartel leaders staying in the main house were actually sleeping, the energy was… sleepy. Like waking up first at the weirdest fucking sleepover in history. A lull after the long night of constant activity. The night that Sofia had spent camped outside their bedroom door while Elena did whatever the fuck strategizing vampires did before a conflict like this.
Bambi was using the time to go for a run. Running while Librada and Hel followed her in a dark SUV like she was a princess sent away to boarding school. Zuri swallowed her little smile with a sip of watery American coffee. Elena had gotten so annoyed at Bambi’s enthusiastic acceptance of a protective detail as soon as Lib said Hel was coming along.
Zuri had scarfed up the moment of normalcy with the greed of a woman eating for the first time in weeks. Bambi feigning innocence while Elena was seething with jealousy that shouldn’t be sexy but was had felt addictively good. Zuri would’ve pulleda nearly growling Elena into bed if Lib hadn’t knocked on the door.
For a shining, miraculous beat in the shitstorm of their lives, things felt normal. Well, as normal as anything could be while dating a vampire and an angel and dangling over the jagged edge of supernatural war.
She took a gulp of coffee and then grimaced. She needed to remember to get acafetera.
Zuri scanned the surroundings. Her farm was larger than the wall-ed in estate, though not by much. As she thought about warding the grounds, size wasn’t the problem, but rather the sheer volume of people coming and going. Opening and closing the magical gates would be an exhausting ordeal.
She was thinking about how she could manipulate ward magic in new and unimaginable ways, and whether it could hold against a marauding horde of vampires that probably already knew their location, when she felt a presence drift toward her.
In a high-neck pantsuit that looked like black and white abstract art, Bernice started for her. Blocking the sun with a heavy, black parasol that would have given Morticia Addams a boner, she glided toward Zuri with the elegance of a runway model. The look of a model with the cold, calculating eyes of a shark.
Zuri resisted the urge to sit up. She forced herself to look relaxed and hoped Bernice attributed the jump in her pulse to being startled. Or the weak ass caffeine.
“Miss doing a running cannonball into the pool?” Zuri asked when Bernice stopped next to her, facing the clear, blue water.
The vampire’s face was a perfect mask half hidden behind avant garde black sunglasses. “Even in my first life, I was no fan of the sun. Premature aging,” she said in what Zuri almost thought was a joke.
“Then you made excellent life choices,” Zuri agreed. “Or, I guess I should say, choice in second lives.”
Bernice made a sound in her throat Zuri took for a chuckle even though her face didn’t move. There was something about her stillness that made sweat gather on the small of Zuri’s back. She could never forget this woman was a vampire the way Elena made her forget.
“You’re Elena’s paramour,” she said with no particular emphasis. “And the other witch. The blonde one.”
“Is this your way of hitting on me?” Zuri joked but it didn’t change the discomfort growing in her gut.
The vampire turned her head slightly toward Zuri. Even with the solid black sunglasses, Zuri knew Bernice was looking at her. Felt her gaze burning like a hot poker through her skin.
“Darling, if I were hitting on you, you’d know it,” she said, the very corner of her mouth twitching.
Zuri leaned back, getting the sense that she meant Zuri couldn’t resist her if she tried. With a strange unease, she wasn’t sure Bernice was wrong. But she wasn’t at all sure how the fuck she felt about it.
“Elena has always been a bit… unorthodox.” Bernice turned her attention back to the pool and Zuri felt like she’d released her from a chokehold. It was all she could do not to sputter and catch her breath. “She’s always enjoyed the company of witches. As long as I’ve known her. But two? And one with powers no one has heard of?—”
“You know what they say,” Zuri interrupted, not wanting Bernice to even consider the topic of Marisol. “Once you go witch, you never switch.”
Bernice tipped her head to the side as if to say,I wouldn’t know. “Brujas don’t have healers of the sort she has described.”
Ugh. She’s a fucking bloodsucker with a bone.
“Did you get your witch history degree from Nosferatu U?” Zuri forced a laugh. “Brujas are the most diverse and widespread flavor of witch. I’m sure we’re capable of acts untold.” She took another sip of the coffee she hated more and more by the second. “Thank you very fucking much, colonialism.”
