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They watched her in deafening silence for so long, Marisol wondered whether they were going to kick her out. Whether she was going to have to fend off some terrifying man with fangs waiting just outside the boundary of Zuri’s place. Despite the worry wrapping around her spine and wearing down her muscles, she didn’t backtrack.

“Noted,” Zuri decided after a beat.

Elena flashed her a smirk, like watching Marisol have a meltdown was akin to watching her crawl toward her in lingerie. When Zuri noticed, she rolled her eyes at Elena and put her hand on Marisol’s upper arm. The touch was softer than Marisol expected.

“Don’t treat me like I’m breakable,” Marisol protested, but didn’t pull her arm away. She hated how the touch soothed her. How she wanted someone to pull her into their chest and rub her back until she cried herself to sleep. But she could never admit that. Not here. Maybe not anywhere. Her grandmother had always soothed her, and she’d never have that again.

“Bambi, you got between me and a furious vampire.” Zuri led Marisol away with a warm hand on her lower back. “I think you’re fucking nuts.” She breathed something like a chuckle. “But I do not think you’re made of glass.”

They were at Zuri’s bed when Marisol’s depleted brain registered what Zuri was doing. Pulling back the covers on one side, she patted the crisp, white sheets. They looked so warm and so soft, and Marisol’s body was so heavy. It was like someone had ripped out her batteries and she was struggling to function.

“Oh, come on. Lie down.” Zuri’s tone didn’t have any bite when she urged her into bed. “You’re tired and it’s been a lot. Just close your eyes for a few minutes.”

Sliding under the softest quilt she’d ever felt, the sandalwood scent of Zuri’s perfume surrounded her. She wanted to protest that she didn’t need a damn nap, but she was lying on her side and nestling into a plush feather pillow that felt as close to an embrace as she was going to get. Her eyes closed against her will when Zuri pulled the covers up to her chin.

Delirious, Marisol nearly asked Zuri to stay with her for a while. Nearly asked her to lie down with her. Mercifully, she was too tired to open her mouth and embarrass herself.

Not a witch. Marisol’s eyes flew open as the words sunk in. Sleep ripped away. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

Not a witch. Then what the hell was she?

The question clawed inside Marisol’s mind, sharp talons of panic tearing at her. She wanted to demand answers, to beg them to tell her what she was. But the words dried up in her throat. Unsure whether she believed them, they’d already said they’d never seen someone like her.

How old was Elena again? What did it mean that she hadn’t met someone like her before? How could she be so utterly alone in this new reality, isolated on an island of the unknown? She had no one to guide her, no family histories or ancestral knowledge to make sense of the impossible.

She pulled the covers tighter around herself, as if the cotton might keep her safe. Tears burned behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She couldn’t show that weakness, nothere. Not again. It was bad enough that Zuri and Elena had looked at her like she was unhinged. That she’d stopped their fighting by having a meltdown.

Marisol squeezed her eyes shut, willing sleep to come and provide a temporary escape.Not a witch, she thought again, with a sick pit in her stomach.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“You’re an asshole.You know that, right?” Zuri poured herself a glass of wine without offering any to Elena and sat in the armchair next to her. Eyes closed and head tossed back, Elena didn’t need heightened senses to know she was reaching a breaking point.

“I liked it better when you called me baby,” she replied, her entire left side throbbing with pain from her excursion. Without the adrenaline of accusations, she was only left with agony.

“Forget I told you about that,” Zuri shot back, eyes still closed and energy flagging. “You’re never hearing that shit again.”

Watching her, Elena’s chest tightened. They’d been ready to promise each other forever once. After too many lifetimes of heartbreaks, Elena never expected to want to hand her heart to anyone else for smashing. Certainly not a mortal, but she’d done it despite her better judgment. Despite the cruel truth that love was never hers to keep.

When Zuri finally turned her head and looked at her, her beautiful brown eyes were a tempest. A mix of emotions bound together with hurt and disappointment. Elena much preferred her anger. Anger didn’t make her want to tear out her own useless heart.

“You seriously think I’d ever hurt you?”

The hairline crack in Zuri’s voice was a pain more excruciating than the one in Elena’s body. Clenching her jaw to stop herself from reaching out, Elena shook her head. “People have the undesirable habit of changing.”

Zuri took a long sip from her glass. “Yeah, well, we don’t all have the luxury of being fuckboys our entire, eternal existence.”

“What’s a?—”

“I’m not your Google,” Zuri snapped. “You can’t accuse me of trying tomurderyou and then ask me to be your fucking urban dictionary.”

I know, she admitted in her mind, but couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. “Something is happening to me. Something… not normal.” She considered another possibility. “What if someone put something in your blood without you knowing? Drinking from you… It’s the last thing I remember doing, Zuri.”

“Someone like who?” Anger was a pulsing red aura swirling around Zuri.

“Who knew you were coming to see me?”

Zuri drained her wine and all but slammed the glass on the small table between the two armchairs. “Candela and Avani. I trust them as much as I trust myself, and witches don’t give a shit about vampires.”