Page 32 of Blood from the Marrow (Lilith’s Legacy #2)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Everything moved faster than Marisol could see. One moment there was a vampire snarling in front of her, and the next a blonde streak she almost recognized as Sofia. Sofia?

A scream tangled up with flailing arms and billowing clothes.

Sofia, Marisol was sure now, had the other vampire beneath her as they plummeted from nearly the top of the tower.

Time slowed as they fell. Marisol was stunned silent while Sofia held the vampire like a hawk might hold a fish—all talons and horrific rending.

And then the sickening crack of a skull hitting stone.

The room spun and Marisol staggered backward until her back hit the wall.

She struggled to stay in her body. To stay in the present.

But her nervous system was in the past, in Sayah’s cellar with Narine’s decapitated sons and so much blood that Marisol choked on the memory alone.

“Do not reveal yourself, Child.” Sabina’s voice was a disembodied whisper.

Below, Sofia and Librada and Hel scaled the bookshelves, pulling the other two vampires off and dropping them to the ground. Hel and Librada moved around each other, working in unison like they were two arms extending from the same body.

Two more vampires streamed in through the open window, but Sabina didn’t give them a chance to get near Marisol. When Sabina leapt to meet the attackers in mid-air, it was more flight than should be possible.

Sabina moved with a grace that concealed her lethal nature. A nature Marisol was reminded of when Sabina opened her mouth and extended the longest fangs she’d ever seen. Marisol closed her eyes, but the inhuman scream was obviously not Sabina’s.

She forced herself to her feet when she’d realized she’d dropped to the ground, knees clutched to her chest. Vision blurry when she opened her eyes, and racing pulse making her vision dance, she made herself look over the edge.

She couldn’t stand to think that one of them needed her help while she let her fears take her hostage.

There didn’t seem to be any more vampires coming through the window; on the ground, the ones still standing were outnumbered.

Marisol blinked back inexplicable tears.

The ones that appeared even after she told herself that Sofia was okay.

The blood streaking her face wasn’t hers.

Her throat hadn’t been savaged. Not this time.

And then the door leading to the crypt erupted with sound, a furious rattling like the solid wood might be ripped from its hinges.

Using the momentary distraction, the only vampire left alive vaulted himself onto the stairs.

But instead of running up to a lone Marisol, he all but flew across to a bookshelf.

Like a frog, he sprang from one ledge to the other until he hurled himself out the window.

Without hesitation, Sofia followed him into the night.

“Librada, open this door!” Elena roared in Spanish, her muffled voice loud enough to echo in the tower.

The door bowed but didn’t break, and Marisol got the distinct feeling it had been bewitched somehow. Like the stones concealing the archive.

“I was reckless for a little light,” Sabina muttered toward the broken window.

Marisol descended the stairs as quickly as she could without stumbling on unsteady legs.

By the time she made it to the ground, Librada had opened the door to the crypt and the last invader was no longer moving.

Elena rushed in, brown eyes huge and wild the way they’d been the first time she’d seen them.

So stricken with abject fear they made Marisol forget her own.

Elena bounded toward Marisol, catching her with her palms cradling her jaw. “Are you okay?” Her voice was thin and trembling and nothing like the one that had demanded entry.

Zuri was next to her seconds later, the same horror etched in her face. “What the fuck happened, Bambi?” She scanned her from top to bottom. “You couldn’t activate your wings?”

Pulse pounding with relief as her shock ebbed, Marisol shook her head and tried not to cry in front of the others. “I didn’t need to,” she replied, attention fixed on Elena so she didn’t have to look at the bodies in pools of blood.

Marisol’s heart lifted despite the lingering fear.

Elena was looking at her—really looking at her—for the first time in weeks.

Dark honey eyes were warm and familiar and dripping with the love Marisol had desperately missed.

Elena looked more like herself than she had since Georgia.

More present. It should’ve made Marisol sick that it had taken so much death to bring Elena back to her, but she could only reach for relief.

When Zuri was sure that Marisol didn’t have a visible scratch on her, she turned to the carnage on the floor. To Sofia who’d reappeared without Marisol’s notice.

“Who the fuck are these assholes, then?” She looked at her daughters.

“And when the hell did you get here?” Her attempt to sound surprised was weak, like she’d expected Sofia to follow despite being told to stay.

She turned to Sabina. “You look incredible for a…” Zuri cocked her head to one side.

“What do you call someone who’s lived a thousand years?

Somehow millennial seems inappropriate.”

Flooded with euphoria, Marisol chuckled despite standing in a sickeningly macabre scene. “Here comes the rant about late-stage capitalism.”

“What did they want?” Elena turned to ask Librada, apparently satisfied that Marisol was okay.

“They did not make demands,” Librada replied from where she was crouched, cleaning her hands with the back of a dead vampire’s shirt.

Marisol looked away.

“They were already here,” Sofia said. “Inside The Order.” Her lethal blue gaze cut to Hel. The accusation in her silence was deafening.

Hel crossed her arms and Marisol imagined she was watching a nature documentary. Imagined the soothing voice of an old British man narrating the scene.

In the wild, when two alpha females encounter each other after a hunt, a delicate dance of posturing begins.

The newcomer—having just demonstrated her violent prowess—now holds her rival in an unblinking stare.

The established pack member responds by crossing her arms, a clear territorial gesture that says: I could eat you. Fascinating.

God, she needed to eat a full meal and hydrate and take a freaking nap.

“They must have guessed this is why we left for Venice,” Librada said, breaking the suffocating silence.

Elena stood next to Sofia as if there was any doubt that she mistrusted Hel and The Order. “Or they are cult members tipped off about our visit.”

Marisol’s stomach tensed. As if sensing the same sparking tension in the air, Zuri moved closer to her. Body positioned just slightly in front of Marisol.

“These are not members of The Order,” Sabina said, tone steady like she wasn’t concerned with Hel and Elena’s staring contest. “The Order would never choose a side among Lilith’s daughters.”

Elena rolled her eyes, easing at least one source of the uncomfortable tension. Sofia’s posture was still stiff and ready to pounce.

“Sofia,” Librada’s voice was unsettlingly vulnerable and her approach toward Sofia slow and cautious. “Hel would never betray me.”

Sofia’s attention darted to Librada for half a second before she set her glare on Hel again.

“How would they know to be here before you?” Sofia shot back.

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t Hel.” Librada’s confidence was unshakable.

“You don’t know—”

“I do,” Lib said before Sofia could finish her sentence.

“This is sure giving But Daddy I Love Her vibes,” Zuri muttered.

“No one in The Order has any reason to cause harm to you or anyone else,” Sabina said, inspecting the corpses. When she looked up, her attention was only on Elena. Her unspoken question was obvious. Who does want to harm you?

Elena considered the slumped figures on the ground that were making Marisol increasingly queasy. “This is too sloppy to be Sayah.” She shook her head, brow furrowed.

“A scare tactic?” Zuri wondered aloud. “Just to fuck with you? Remind you that she’s out here watching?” She rubbed the back of her neck. “How stupid.”

“An irrational and unpredictable enemy can strike a great deal of fear into the hearts of their opponents. If Sayah is willing to burn her own people—”

“These aren’t hers,” Lib said. “If they were loyal enough for a suicide mission, they would have been at the feast. I never saw them on the grounds. Not anywhere.”

“Neither did I,” Sofia agreed, but her shoulders were tense again and her attention was back on Hel.

“You can’t account for other cartels having joined her,” Zuri said before gritting her teeth like it took all her self-control not to add, while we were wasting time.

“Or Sayah cannot exert control over her allies,” Librada offered as if needing it to be true.

“Or another cartel is shooting its shot?” Zuri guessed. “Could be some idiots trying to make a power grab the first chance they got.” She looked at Elena, and they all knew she meant the first time Elena left the penthouse.

Silence was cold and uncomfortable and heavy with the presence of death. With the weight of so much unknown and danger and dread.

“If they wanted Elena,” Sabina said, “they would have ambushed her outside. Their odds would certainly have been better there. A vampire and a witch are less of a match—”

“You’ve never met me—” Zuri started, but Marisol’s hand on her wrist stopped her. Marisol didn’t think Sabina had meant it as an insult, and it was true. They would have had a better chance if they’d caught Elena and Zuri outside, even if the thought of that made Marisol’s sour stomach churn.

“Not if the point was to fuck with me,” Elena decided after a beat. She nodded as if agreeing with her own debate. “And Sayah has always been a show-off. It would be her style to sacrifice these idiots just to show me she could. That she has cannon fodder to spare.”

It still didn’t make any sense to Marisol. And it didn’t explain how they’d known where to find Elena. Could someone from the private airport have tipped Sayah off? From the airport in Venice? Would she have spies everywhere? The feeling of being watched made Marisol eager to leave.

“You must all go now. I have work to do. Wilhelmina, go with them,” Sabina said with indisputable authority.

“I can’t—”

“You can,” Sabina interrupted. “And more importantly, you must.”

“The Order—”

“Others are going to smell this mess soon,” Sabina said.

“The only ones who will ask me questions understand that I hold many secrets. Plenty worth killing for.” She spared Marisol a glance and the hint of a wink.

“You don’t live as long as I have without acquiring leverage and liability.

But I have both in manageable levels. They will see that I was targeted and I sent my most trusted mentee to adduce by whom.

” She gave Marisol a nod before turning back to Hel.

“None will question that I trust you like the blood daughter I never had. Who else to hunt for more would-be assailants?”

“Sabina,” Hel said with devastating vulnerability. She was a soldier who wanted desperately to disobey an order but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“I have not heard of living Aglion in many years.” Sabina motioned for Hel to follow her up the stairs. When only Hel went, Sabina stopped and motioned for Marisol to follow as well.

Once they’d reached the top again, Sabina asked for Hel’s hand. Hel gave it to her without hesitation. A flash of fangs, and before Marisol knew it, blood was pouring from Hel’s open wrist.

Sabina bit into her hand for the second time. She pressed her palm to Hel’s wound and whispered in a language Marisol didn’t understand. It sounded old and sent goosebumps flying over every inch of Marisol’s skin. Then she pressed Hel’s palm to the stone she’d used to open the archive.

When Sabina was finished. She asked for Marisol’s hand.

“This is your history, child.” Sabina produced something like a letter opener from an unseen pocket and cut a small, nearly painless incision on Marisol’s palm. “I hope that when you return, you will add what is missing. That you will contribute to the future.”

Sabina pressed Marisol’s palm to the stone that was alive with electricity. She felt like a bug getting zapped and living to tell about it.

When Sabina released her, Marisol’s wings sprang out before she could stop them. This time, she was the one asking for Hel and Sabina’s hands. For their trust when she hovered over their broken skin and closed their injuries as if they’d never existed.

“Go,” Sabina said, eyes brimming with emotion as she watched Marisol pull her power back into herself.

Hel shook her head as they descended the stairs to where Elena was pacing, and Zuri was openly vibrating with impatience. “What about this mess—”

“I’ve been disposing of bodies since before your grandparents were born. Long before this consent fad.”

Marisol pretended Sabina was joking about mass murder.

“Go,” Sabina insisted when they reached the bottom. “I have work to do and you’re in my way.”

Zuri stared at Sabina, eyes searching. When the rest of them started for the door leading down to the crypt, Zuri didn’t move.

“You worked the magic into the stones,” Zuri said like she’d been analyzing something and finally arrived at a conclusion. “How?”

One corner of Sabina’s mouth twitched but all she said was, “Go.”

“I’ll be back,” Hel said like she wasn’t sure whether to salute Sabina or bow or risk a show of affection.

“I’m counting on it.”