Page 3 of Blood from the Marrow (Lilith’s Legacy #2)

Chapter Three

Driving from the park to the downtown penthouse was a blur. If it weren’t for the nauseating pit in her stomach and ache in her chest, Marisol wouldn’t be entirely sure she’d just interacted with her. Unfamiliar emotions were warring inside of her and she had the unusual desire to bolt.

Maybe running away when things get hard is hereditary, she thought with tension in her jaw and a roiling in her gut.

While she waited for the security gate to the building’s garage to open, she tried to step outside of herself. Using a technique she’d picked up somewhere, she imagined a friend was telling her that her long-lost mother had shown up out of nowhere.

Marisol’s first concern would be for her friend. Had the woman asked you for anything? Money? Help? A favor?

The answer would be no… Or maybe not yet. It wasn’t impossible that Clara had been keeping tabs on her and now that she was with Elena—a woman so rich it seemed her funds were endless—she’d surfaced from the rock she’d been hiding under.

It was more than possible. It was highly likely. People usually only acted in self-interest, and they so often did horrendous things for money.

Annoyingly, Marisol’s rational side raised a counterpoint.

For that to be true, Clara would have to have been watching her all these years in the expectation that she’d come into money somewhere.

As a nurse, Marisol had a decent salary.

If she was going to ask for something, why not when Marisol secured her first job?

It seemed so risky to hold out for her to end up with someone like Elena.

Had she been waiting for Marisol to snag a rich doctor?

Marisol considered she was lying about acting like an unseen force watching over her. How could it be true?

If Clara cared about her at all, she would have shown up any of the other times she’d needed her. Tears stung the backs of Marisol’s eyes, but she refused to let them form while she drove up the garage in circles. She would never cry for that woman ever again. Not ever.

There was no way she’d given a single shit about her. How could she not come to her own mother’s funeral? How could she know that Marisol had been left completely alone in the world before she’d figured out how to fend for herself and do nothing about it?

If Clara had appeared then, she would have forgiven her immediately.

If she’d shown up on any of the terrifying nights after losing the only caregiver Marisol had ever known—nights when she had felt so desperately alone and small and scared—she would have clung to her and forgotten how many years her mother had been absent.

Old grief pressed down on her chest hard enough to crack her sternum. She wanted not to want—

No. It was way too late. Clara was too late.

Marisol waited for a Mercedes to slowly back in to its assigned parking spot. Clara had blown any chance she had to make things right, even if she had been telling the truth.

Could she be telling the truth? Marisol couldn’t stop herself from analyzing the situation clinically.

If she didn’t just know about the Aglion…

if she was one too… and if her alleged sperm donor was also one of her kind…

it stood to reason that there were more.

That there were others who could teach her about her identity and how to control her powers instead of hoping they’d show up when she needed them.

She thought of Zuri again. Of potentially keeping her alive forever. To do that, she’d have to go from finger-painting to da Vinci. The knowledge gap was insurmountable.

The discomfort in her chest morphed into an icy fist squeezing her heart.

Maybe she could be selfish. She could call the number on the stupid piece of paper.

Meet Clara and find out where to find others like herself and then walk away from her like she never existed.

She didn’t need her. She just needed someone to teach her.

That was some poetic justice, wasn’t it? She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. It was exactly what Clara deserved. She deserved Marisol’s anger and pain and to be treated unfairly. Like her feelings didn’t matter.

Dropping the tension in her shoulders, Marisol couldn’t pretend she’d do something like that.

Not even when her emotions were raw and it was all she could do to hold herself together.

There was no way she was going to compromise her dignity to get back at a person who shouldn’t even matter.

So what if she’d given birth to her? She’d never been her mother.

At the top floor, Marisol reached for the second key fob that granted access to Elena’s private section of the garage. At the end of a long line of ridiculously overpriced and mostly hideous cars, she parked her sedan next to Zuri’s hatchback.

Instead of jumping out, she let the AC blast cold air in her face while she leaned against the headrest. Attempting to center herself in her body, she thought about the immediate present. Of the things she knew were real.

She recalled the month-long debate over her and Zuri’s cars.

How unreasonably crazy it had made Elena that neither of them would accept new ones.

Marisol hadn’t wanted to change because she couldn’t justify wasting money when hers was perfectly good.

Zuri had most definitely refused in order to annoy Elena, or because she didn’t want to give in to her. Or both.

It had been the most absurd debate she’d ever been a part of, and she could still see Elena pacing the bedroom trying to convince them of the superiority of British engineering. When Marisol countered that her Corolla had exceptional gas mileage, Elena had nearly fainted.

Despite the drama and the ridiculous topic, Elena’s insistence had been about giving. All Elena did was give of herself to her and Zuri. Every time Marisol asked for something, usually emotional, Elena tried her very best to provide.

In six months, Zuri and Elena had given Marisol more than Clara had in thirty-two years. What did she expect Marisol to do? Turn her back on the people who’d been there for her through some terrible times just so she could wander off, chasing a stranger?

Marisol closed her eyes. Zuri and Elena had proven their character with actions, not words.

She remembered the vampire attack in the hospital.

How Elena dragged her broken body across the bed to protect her.

How Zuri had been crushed against the gravel outside the market and fought like a wild animal to get to her.

And not just that, they’d cared for her.

Even if they hadn’t said it out loud yet, they’d shown her they loved her.

How could Clara ever expect her to abandon the only people apart from her grandmother who’d ever made her feel safe and loved and wanted?

Had she really expected that Marisol would run into her arms because she was the only family she had left?

If Elena’s love for her progeny had shown her anything, it was that family was a choice, not a DNA match.

Turning the car off, Marisol headed for the stairwell that led to the penthouse.

As soon as she walked through the service entrance, she took a deep, cleansing breath.

Her lungs and heart expanded with the clean scent of home combined with the aroma of browning butter and the sound of Zuri and Elena in conversation.

She was home with the people who’d never abandoned her even before they cared for her. From the moment the three of them had been in the same room together, they’d never left each other behind. Marisol hurried down the long corridor where the laundry room, storage, and butler’s pantry were.

“Finally,” Elena said when Marisol entered the open living space.

Marisol smiled at the sight of Elena watching Zuri standing at the stove.

Even without seeing what was in the sauté pan, she was sure it was something vegetarian.

A change she’d never asked her to make. That Zuri had stopped preparing meat dishes showed how she’d accommodate Marisol without making it a production.

“What the hell took you so long, Bambi?” Zuri glanced over her shoulder while stirring.

“What’s this?” Marisol pointed at the red box on the counter instead of answering the question. She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to talk about Clara either. Not when she still hadn’t made sense of it for herself. She didn’t want to look like the mess she felt.

“An invitation to a big vampire soiree,” Zuri replied, spooning squash over a bowl of bowtie pasta.

The aroma of Zuri’s cooking usually made Marisol’s stomach growl, but all she could think about was her conversation with Clara. She desperately needed to think about something else, get rid of the splinter jammed under her skin.

“What constitutes a soiree?” She looked into the box to find a creepy glass skull half-full of what she hoped was red food coloring. “This is giving some Eyes Wide Shut vibes,” she joked in a way that almost didn’t feel forced.

“In this case, it’s a hundred vampires and their nearest and dearest having a lovely time on a Georgia estate for a few days,” Elena replied before sipping from her wine glass. It only took half a second for Marisol to register that she was drinking the invitation. Not food coloring then.

The prospect of getting out of Miami and soaking in a completely new experience pushed the discomfort out of Marisol’s queasy stomach. She wasn’t running, she just needed time to absorb the shock.

“When are we leaving?” Marisol asked.

Elena’s dark honey eyes widened in surprise. She set her glass down without hiding the amused smirk on her red lips.

“To swim in a sea of vampires?” Zuri laughed. “Fucking never.”

“It’s a lot of pomp and so much circumstance,” Elena added, but her energy wasn’t saying no.

“But could it be fun?” Marisol pushed, certain that she wanted to go.

Zuri splashed organic milk into the pan she’d been using. “Fun, but at what cost?”

Elena chuckled and gave a little shrug. “Sayah knows how to throw a hell of a party. I’m pretty sure she was a hedonist even in her first life.”

“Three days of ridiculous overindulgence?” Zuri guessed before sprinkling in flour.

“Is there any other party?” Elena teased.

Zuri smirked. “Even debauchery must get boring after a few hundred years.”

Elena bit her bottom lip. “I haven’t lost my taste for sin.”

“So we’re going?” Marisol’s gaze jumped from Zuri to Elena and back.

“Do you really want to?” Elena asked, eyes searching hers like she’d suddenly noticed there was something different about her.

Afraid that Elena would guess what had happened by some micro-movement she didn’t know how to suppress, Marisol took a few steps toward Elena and threw her arms around her neck. Elena tilted her head up to maintain eye contact, but Marisol pulled her in closer.

“Maybe you’ll finally get the nerve to bite me at your big vampire party,” she whispered against her mouth.

Fangs brushing her bottom lip followed Elena’s smile. “Do you think you’re ready for that?” She gripped Marisol’s waist so tight she couldn’t slip away if she tried. It wasn’t tight enough. “You’re going to fall in love with me,” she warned in a raspy taunt.

Running her tongue over Elena’s fang, she picked up the metallic tang of blood. How would she taste when it was her life on her lips?

In a flash of daring, Marisol bit down on her bottom lip and pulled it hard. “Maybe it’ll be you who falls in love with me.”

Zuri’s body was behind Marisol’s, her hands on her hips and her breath on her neck. When she kissed a line up her jaw, Marisol let go of the worry throbbing in her chest.