Page 45 of Blood from the Marrow (Lilith’s Legacy #2)

Chapter Thirty

The ballroom reeked of impending war, and Elena sat like the tip of the spear at the end of a long table.

She leaned back in her chair and listened to Cordelia relay what she’d heard from her contacts in the Midwest. She wanted to focus on the advantage of the Chicago cartel rallying to the anti-Sayah side, but her thoughts kept drifting to that morning.

To the panic in Marisol’s eyes while she begged Elena to go against every fiber of her nature.

Doubt curled its icy tendrils around Elena’s fatigued heart and squeezed.

She wanted to avoid forming the thought as much as she wanted to take a full breath.

As much as she wanted to change the elemental truth of her nature.

As much as she didn’t want it to clash so fundamentally with Marisol’s.

She wanted to believe she could love Marisol without it unraveling her, wanted to believe that love, fierce and deep and true, was enough to weld them together.

It was a weakness to imprison the witches in a guesthouse on Narine’s property.

Elena had known that even before she saw it etched on Bernice’s furrowed brow and stamped on the surprise in Cordelia’s eyes.

It was unimaginable to leave the witches alive who’d inflicted unspeakable pain on her family.

And there she’d been, escorting them to a seaside cottage and providing them with round-the-clock guards rather than putting their heads on spikes as a warning.

And why? Because Marisol had asked her to with a gentle voice and pleading eyes.

The meeting moved on to tactical defense strategies for Narine’s fortress, but failure was a distracting shadow clouding Elena’s vision.

She would have taken no pleasure in killing the witches, but pleasure wasn’t the point.

The point was eliminating threats before they could strike again.

To show anyone who would dare strike against her that they would pay with their lives.

She should have sent Marisol away. Should never have allowed herself the mistake of mercy.

Midnight was almost upon them when the council finally adjourned.

Plans and contingencies could stretch into infinity, but they wouldn’t make her feel more prepared for what came next.

Sidestepping Bernice’s attempts to talk, Elena continued to her quarters, her mind still circling the same bitter thought.

The same depressing truth. Marisol’s love was a weakness she couldn’t afford.

She hated that the terror in Harriet’s grandchild’s eyes had swayed her. Hated that Marisol’s voice had been so soft. That her touch had rooted Elena in a humanity that she’d eradicated long ago. Humanity that could only create liability. Love that could only lead her astray.

Fuck.

She was drowning in disappointment when she pushed open the door to their suite. She’d expected Zuri and Marisol to be asleep given the day’s events, but found Zuri standing alone at the open sliding glass door leading to the pool and ocean beyond.

The salt in the air taunted Elena, sharp and stinging like an old wound rubbed raw over and over. It seeped into everything, corroding as it peeled back. She hated it. Hated the way it clung to her skin, the way it felt like it was trying to strip her bare.

“Hey,” Zuri said as she turned. In a flowing white shirt dress, the cool breeze wrapped around her like it wanted to bestow a blessing.

Elena struggled against the urge to tell Zuri to leave. To take her things and save herself. Elena’s battles didn’t have to be hers either. She didn’t have to bloody her hands even as an accomplice. Walking toward her instead, Elena accepted that she was weak and selfish.

“Hi,” she murmured in Zuri’s ear after she embraced her from behind.

Closing her eyes, she buried her nose in the curve of Zuri’s neck and filled her lungs with the perfume of her warm skin.

She let the feeling of Zuri’s body pressed against her chest settle her.

Ground her. Make her feel less like she was grasping for control and more like she was holding on to something worth destroying herself to keep.

Arms resting over Elena’s, Zuri held her just as tightly. She swayed in Elena’s embrace, creating a soothing rhythm that might have lulled Elena right to sleep if a flash of light hadn’t forced her attention elsewhere.

Where the sprawling pool deck met one of many swaths of gardens surrounding the house, Marisol stood with incandescent wings reflecting the moonlight.

The sight made Elena’s steady pulse skip for the first time in her second life.

With Hel and Lib at her side, she was luminous.

She was the ethereal beauty that made men weep.

That led them to war. That made them tear at their eyes because it was impossible to absorb. Good thing Elena wasn’t a man.

Speechless, Elena watched while Hel talked to her and Marisol made unusual gestures with her hands. Everything fell away while Marisol moved. Her skin seemed to glow while she focused, her massive wings stretching out behind her.

“Gods,” Elena gasped when Marisol dropped to her knees, hands in the grass.

Moments later, Narine’s decimated rose bushes seemed to take in a rush of life.

Brown leaves turned green and new ones sprouted on bare branches.

Through blurry eyes, Elena managed to spot the bright pink blooms that erupted out of nowhere as if to thank Marisol for her healing touch.

“I didn’t know she could do that,” Elena whispered, mouth dry and body trembling.

“Pretty sure she didn’t either,” Zuri said, but the awe in her voice matched the soaring in Elena’s stomach.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Elena confessed to the taunting breeze. “She shouldn’t be—”

Zuri turned in her arms and Elena knew she’d been expecting this. She’d prepared. In her lives, no one had ever predicted her thoughts like Zuri had.

“Listen to me.” Zuri wrapped her arms around Elena’s waist like she’d be able to stop her from running.

“Are you listening?” Her tone was so stern and her eyes so full of love.

It was unbearable to sit in so much unworthiness.

“I know you’ve been in your fucking head for the last twelve hours.

” Her jab hit its target. “Thinking about all the ways you don’t deserve her or me or both of us or love at all.

” She squeezed Elena’s hips. “Have you ever considered that you and Marisol aren’t opposites but complements? ”

Elena furrowed her brow. “What?”

Zuri shook her head as if she’d read her mental notes wrong. “You’re thinking life and death are opposites, aren’t you?”

Tipping her head to the side, Elena considered the question. She hadn’t put it so bluntly in her mind, but the comparison fit. She shrugged.

“I feel like this is some dramatic bullshit you would say, but what if vampires are just the flip side of Aglion?” She pinned Elena with her unwavering gaze, boring a hole straight into the heart that already belonged to her.

“Death and life. Reaping and sowing. Darkness is defined by the presence of light the same way that light is defined by the absence of darkness. One literally couldn’t exist without the other.

We need both. All light would burn the world away, and complete darkness would strangle the life out of everything. Don’t you get it?”

Elena wanted to make a wry joke about Zuri having picked up a philosophy degree while they were broken up, but she couldn’t find the will to hide behind humor. Couldn’t make herself move anywhere but closer.

She tried to swallow Zuri’s words along with the spiked lump in her throat, but they wouldn’t budge. Wouldn’t let her run from the ache in her chest.

Her gaze drifted back to Marisol, still kneeling in the grass, her hands pressed to the earth as if she could will life back into it through sheer determination.

Since the moment she’d met her, Marisol had been such an intense combination of fearlessness and bleeding empathy.

She refused to accept defeat. Refused to give up. Even on Elena.

With her hands in the ground, it was impossible to say Marisol wasn’t strong in her own way.

Strong in a way Elena had no language for.

Brave in a way she barely understood. Elena looked at Zuri again.

Zuri, who saw so much more than Elena ever could.

A person capable of holding so much love in her body it verged on terrifying.

“What does that make you?” Elena’s voice was faint and all but lost to the wind pushing her hair from her face. “If I’m dark and she’s light?”

Victory was the flicker of satisfaction in Zuri’s eyes. “The goddamn gray that blends you together.” She pulled Elena down to her mouth, the salt on her lips the only hint that she’d been crying.

Elena didn’t get the chance to ask if she was okay after that morning’s events before Zuri was pulling away. “Come on, I want to see what Hel’s teaching her.”

With their hands clasped, they skirted the pool deck.

Vaguely aware that other vampires had gathered to watch from a distance, all Elena could see was Marisol.

See Marisol’s wings dimming the more of herself she poured into the sea of roses.

Elena held her breath while Marisol finished her work.

Watching her, Elena understood how peasants ever believed in tangible gods.

Even now, she had to resist the urge to fall to her knees and pray.

There was only the sound of the ocean when Marisol sat back on her heels, hands dropping to her knees while she tucked her wings in behind her.

They disappeared a moment later. When Marisol opened her eyes, she grinned at her work.

Pink roses, enormous and velvety, filled the night with their intoxicating scent.

Marisol swayed back, bracing herself against the ground. Elena darted to her side, pulling her up and holding her steady.

“You okay?” Elena searched Marisol’s face, pale and damp with sweat.

“Yeah, I just got a little dizzy.” Despite her exhaustion, Marisol’s hazel eyes were bright. “I didn’t know if it would work, but I wanted to try.” Her gaze never left Elena’s. “I wanted… needed to heal something.”

Elena’s stomach clenched, heart so close to pounding despite the laws of science and nature and physiology. And then Marisol was looking at her like she was a wilting plant in need of her beautiful wings.

“Are you okay?” Marisol’s palm was hot against Elena’s jaw. It smelled like earth and life and hope.

Elena closed her eyes. She wasn’t exactly okay, but with Marisol in her arms and Zuri’s hand on the small of her back, she was reckless enough to believe that she could be. She leaned in and kissed Marisol’s trembling lips because words were insufficient.

When she pulled away, there was only the heat on her skin and the smell of roses lifting her heart.

“Sabina’s texts talked around power like this, but seeing it…” Hel’s voice broke Elena’s trance and she remembered that they weren’t alone.

“Somebody talked about turning a graveyard into fucking Eden in your little burn book?” Zuri asked with unabashed skepticism.

“Speaking of the Aglion,” Elena said, Marisol’s kiss reawakening the strategic part of her brain, “we need to make a decision. About all of it.” We sounded foreign on her tongue but she pushed through.

“We need to train our forces to work together. This alliance will mean very little if we can’t function as a unit when Sayah comes. ”

“My coven sisters will be here tomorrow,” Zuri said, flexing the fingers of her tattooed arm. Even now, the red ink seemed to pulse faintly in the moonlight. “I wish we weren’t so far from our coven grounds.”

“Do you think it’s weakening your power?” Marisol asked.

Zuri considered it before shrugging. “The closer I am to the relic, the stronger I am.” She chuckled in disbelief and looked at Lib. “But it’s still like having a nuclear power plant running a remote control car.”

Librada straightened, the corner of her mouth twitching in a self-satisfied smile. They’d accomplished so much in Elena’s absence. Instead of feeling useless, Elena took comfort in knowing that if she fell they’d have each other.

Elena nodded before turning to Marisol. “What about your people? Time’s up for them to decide. Do you want to bring them here?”

Marisol blinked, clearly not expecting the question to be directed at her.

“I…” Her gaze darted between Elena and Zuri before she decided.

“Yes. I do. They’ve had plenty of time to think it over.

” Her voice grew stronger. “I’m going in the morning.

I’ll share everything I’ve learned and bring back whoever’s coming. ”

“And the ones who don’t want to fight?” Elena asked.

Marisol’s expression hardened in a way that reminded Elena of the woman who repeatedly, and fearlessly, put her life in danger.

“They join us for good and bad, or not at all.” Her skin brightened again like her wings might fan out behind her to make the point.

“We’re not running an AirBnB for people who want the benefits without the risks. ”

Zuri’s eyebrows shot up. “Damn, Bambi really said: shit or get off Elena’s fancy pot.”

Something fierce and proud unfurled in Elena’s chest. “Then we move tomorrow. Zuri’s coven, the Aglion who’ll stand with us, and we start drilling our forces.” She looked at the roses blooming around them and accepted the good omen. “Time to find out what we’re really made of.”