Page 17 of Blood from the Marrow (Lilith’s Legacy #2)

Chapter Thirteen

Jaw clenched, Zuri washed a mug that was already clean.

The sound of running water helped drown out the constant buzz of conversation, but couldn’t create any space for her to breathe.

Couldn’t take Zuri away from a hundred fucking vampires sitting inhumanly still and purposeless like creepy-ass robots waiting for activation codes.

The number of unexpected guests hadn’t changed in a week, but Zuri felt more and more crowded by the second. There wasn’t an inch of space where she could be alone.

Her empty stomach twisted. The only time she felt alone was when she was trying to get Elena to talk to her. To fucking see her.

It had been seven days since they’d dragged their broken pieces out of Sayah’s fortress of fucking nightmares.

Seven days since Elena turned from vampire to ghost. Since she slipped away from Zuri—a loss made brutal by its silence—and locked herself in her office.

Seven days of watching Marisol try to heal wounds that weren’t physical.

Of cataloguing Elena’s every micro-movement like all would be well if Marisol just diagnosed her correctly.

Of Marisol finding nothing but heartbreaking emptiness.

It was too much. The mug slipped through Zuri’s fingers and clanged against the metal sink. Shattering ceramic shouldn’t have sounded so much like the crack of a skull against stone. Shouldn’t have made Zuri’s heart leap into her throat and assault her frayed nerves.

A dozen sets of eyes turned toward the sound because there wasn’t a shred of privacy in the open-concept prison cell. The vampire that had been sitting at the kitchen island—the one with red hair and crippling anxiety—stood. Zuri couldn’t absorb his fear when she was already choking on her own.

“Zuri—”

“I’m fine—”

“You’re bleeding,” he said with unreasonably kind eyes for a bloodsucker.

Zuri glanced down at the minor cut on her finger, a thin stream of blood running over her palm and swirling down the drain.

A week ago, she might have worried about getting so much as a paper cut while in the viper pit, but now everything she feared was in the past, stuck in that cellar reeking with blood and death.

She closed her eyes, but there was no escaping the gruesome memories. The stench lodged in her sinuses, the fear burrowed under her skin and festering in her bones.

“Hey,” Marisol’s voice was soft against Zuri’s pounding eardrums, her hand between Zuri’s shoulder blades even softer. “Are you okay?”

Zuri was going to ask if that was a real question.

Ask if anything could possibly be okay. But then she looked up at Marisol.

Her pinpoint pupils and eyes red from crying had turned hazel to bright green.

It was too hard to look at her without wanting to burst into tears, and Zuri couldn’t handle that. Not now.

“It’s nothing.” Zuri turned her attention back to the sink and shoved her hand under the running hot water.

She was starting to clean up the mess when Marisol shut off the faucet.

“Baby.” Marisol’s fingers on the back of her hand pushed Zuri to the brink of unraveling. “Let me see.” She turned Zuri’s hand over to look at her stupid little cut.

Zuri wanted to tell her not to make a production over something so inconsequential, but Bambi’s skin against hers was so warm and Zuri was so exhausted. So worn out from swimming for her life against every current.

“Come on,” Marisol said, and Zuri didn’t have the will to resist. Didn’t even try not to go when Marisol led them through the press of aimless vampires to their bedroom and into the en-suite bathroom.

Zuri rested against the marble counter, taking a full breath in the relative silence. Standing in front of her, Marisol held Zuri’s hand palm up like she was deciding whether stitches were necessary. As if she hadn’t seen savaged throats and fatal gashes.

Emotion pricked at the back of Zuri’s eyes. She wanted to burn the memories out of her brain. Forget the terror on Marisol’s face, the agony in her eyes and the blood splattered all over her panicked face. Zuri choked down the bile burning her throat.

“Missing your first aid kit, Bambi?” Zuri tried to fill the gaping hole in her chest with a feeble joke.

As if Marisol hadn’t obviously been crying all morning, she looked up at Zuri, head still tilted down, and smiled. It was barely a quirk of her lips, but it was light pouring into the pitch covering Zuri’s tired heart.

Marisol wiggled her brows. “I am the first aid kit.”

Gaze fixed on Zuri, Marisol took a deep breath—slow and measured.

As she exhaled, the room filled with the electric hum of her power.

Behind her, Marisol’s wings unfurled. They were back to translucent, rather than the hefty, opaque wings that had knocked Sayah on her ass.

But they were there, and they seemed to have come when Bambi called.

“There’s a new trick,” Zuri said, awed by the spectral display.

Bowing her head, Marisol leaned down and kissed the nothing wound on Zuri’s finger. The moment her lips grazed her skin, Zuri’s body flooded with a pleasant warmth. Every tense, aching muscle in her body uncoiled against her will.

“I’ve been practicing,” Marisol whispered, kiss traveling over Zuri’s palm and up to her wrist even though there was nothing left to heal. Nothing physical, anyway.

Light pulsed under Zuri’s skin while they both watched the small cut disappear. The light faded as Marisol’s wings evaporated into a shimmer like dust in a beam of sunlight or the faintest snow flurry gone before anything stuck to the ground.

Pride, big and vibrant and true, expanded in Zuri’s chest as unstoppable as love.

It surged through her body like Marisol’s healing light, filling spaces grief had hollowed out.

Hope gripped her heart, a defibrillator fighting to bring her back.

Not the cheap hope that made her desperate enough to wish for a miracle.

It was sturdy. Founded on watching a woman she loved find her power.

“I can’t hold it very long,” Marisol said, freckles prominent against her fair skin. “It’s like one of those old cartoons where they run off a cliff—”

“And it’s all well and good until the bunny looks down and sees he’s run out of rock.”

Marisol nodded, a strand of dark blonde hair slipping out of her messy ponytail. Unable to resist, Zuri reached out and tucked it behind her ear. Let her fingertips linger over her jaw.

It had been the wrong thing to do, a kindness Marisol couldn’t absorb. Marisol’s eyes welled up at the gentle touch, broadcasting her pain and fear directly into Zuri’s chest.

“Is she going to be okay?” Marisol’s question was full of the doubt Zuri had been trying to ignore.

Zuri didn’t have the will to lie. Couldn’t paint their shitty situation with anything but a shake of her head. “I don’t know.”

Brow furrowed, Marisol closed her eyes. Closed them so long that when she opened them again, she was no longer on the verge of tears. “We can’t be apart like this,” she uttered the truth like a swift jab to the kidneys. “Am I the only one who remembers what we said on the plane?”

Memories of being covered in blood and viscera and shock slammed into Zuri’s mind. She’d known it right then that Elena would retreat like this, but she’d still wanted a different result.

Zuri couldn’t blame Elena. Trapped under Marisol’s hopeful gaze, she wanted to squirm away, too. It all felt too big. Too impossible. But she was too tired for even that much.

“I know,” Zuri admitted, because she couldn’t see the point in anything but the truth.

“You said it yourself—we’re stronger together, Zuri,” Bambi said with her big eyes dripping with urgency.

“I can’t watch her just stew in all this pain.

” Her voice cracked and Zuri pulled her into her arms like she might keep these shattered pieces together, even if she was failing to keep anything else whole. “I don’t know what to do.”

When Marisol buried her face in the crook of Zuri’s neck and cried, Zuri held her hard enough to crush bone. Every time a sob wracked Marisol’s body, Zuri bit the inside of her cheek.

If she had the power to do anything, Zuri would go back.

Back to the farm. Back to the three of them under the safety of her roof.

Back to laughing despite the lingering threat far beyond her wards.

Back to drinking red wine that had only slightly turned vinegary and back to discovering each other.

If she’d known this was where they’d end up, Zuri would never have let them leave.

“I miss you,” Marisol confessed in a voice so thin it was the point of a razor’s edge. It sliced through Zuri’s patience. Marisol was right. They’d never accomplish anything wallowing like this—certainly not apart.

Zuri took Marisol’s face in hands. She pressed their foreheads together and silently vowed to fix it.

To drag Elena back from the void she’d retreated into, kicking and screaming if that’s what it took.

Enough of this bullshit. Enough of watching the people she loved suffer when they should be gathering strength.

When they should be preparing for whatever the fuck Sayah had planned next.

They were already at a disadvantage. They shouldn’t be making her job easier by fracturing themselves for her. Fuck that.

Zuri’s resolve hardened. She was steel plunged into fire.

Tempered into something sharp and deadly.

Jolted into remembering that she wasn’t built for waiting or for tiptoeing around Elena’s grief when they needed her fire.

Her rage. Everything that made her the force of nature they’d fallen in love with.