Page 66 of Blood from the Marrow (Lilith’s Legacy #2)

Chapter Forty-Four

Sleep was impossible despite Elena’s bone-deep exhaustion.

She couldn’t convince her nervous system that the threat was over.

That everyone who’d threatened her family was dead.

Gods, so much death. Every time Elena closed her eyes, all she saw were rivulets of blood and melting skin.

All she felt was the crippling emptiness of true death.

It wasn’t external threats that made her stare up at the ceiling.

She could handle those again and again until death returned.

It was surviving that Elena wasn’t sure she could do.

The unbearable sound of Marisol’s cries in the shower.

The broken expression in Zuri’s dark eyes, which had only abated momentarily when the St. Augustine coven returned despite having been told to go.

When they brought herbs and poultices and did what they could to patch up the second wave of injured, when there was no strength left in anyone.

The curtains were all drawn but Elena knew it was midmorning when she silently rolled out of bed.

She couldn’t tell if Zuri and Marisol were sleeping lightly or lying in silence, but they didn’t move when she padded out of the room.

Elena had planned to sit in the living room of her quarters alone, and was surprised to find Librada sitting there reading a journal by the light of her phone.

“Did I wake you?” Lib asked, voice hoarse and raw.

“No,” Elena assured her. “What is that?” She sat at her side rather than in one of the armchairs across from the sofa.

“Hel took as many pictures as she could of Sabina’s books. She only began copying them over a few days ago.”

Elena leaned over to look at a rough sketch of Aglion wings. Healing ones if Elena had to guess. There were differences in their shape and size and density.

“I don’t believe Cordelia was the last of the threats against them,” Librada said, like she’d been in the middle of a thought that slipped her grasp. “There must be other hunters.”

Elena leaned back and let the thought she’d been pushing away form. “You’re probably right. She said that Venice wasn’t her call.”

Librada nodded.

“But now those fuckers know we fight back,” Marisol said from the doorway with Zuri at her side.

“We should have left one alive so they could carry a message back to their cesspool,” Zuri added before dropping onto an armchair.

“I’d be happy to deliver it myself.” Sofia emerged from her room with Judith right behind her like a silent declaration of their relationship status. “Turn the hunters into the hunted.”

It was less than a minute before Hel came out of Librada’s bedroom in sweatpants and a muscle tee.

Elena might laugh if she weren’t struggling under the weight of Clara’s sacrifice.

The one Elena didn’t know how to live with yet.

There was solace in seeing her daughters allowing themselves the vulnerability of love. Or, at least, what could be love.

“We made ourselves weak,” Judith said when they were all sitting together in the living room like a most unusual family reunion. “So many small groups on the run. We wore ourselves down. Made the targets so much easier to hit—”

“You were trying to survive,” Marisol interrupted, eyes already glistening.

“And maybe that was the problem,” Judith replied like she was debating giving Marisol an apology. “Settling for survival. For a fraction of a life lived only in fear.” She shook her head.

“Would you join us then?” Marisol’s question came with a rush of hope that smelled like bright citrus.

Judith hesitated.

“We have more fucking space than we know what to do with,” Zuri chimed in. “Seems a shame to waste it when you need it.” She glanced at Marisol. “And you all need each other.”

“Dutch is, uh, not in a place for deciding right now,” Judith replied quietly.

“If we could stay a few days, I think there would be a consensus.” She took a deep breath and her massive shoulders heaved.

Elena understood what she wasn’t saying.

There was freedom in your worst nightmare coming true and surviving it.

“Staying is a good idea,” Elena decided after a beat. “There is no need to rush anywhere.”

Elena expected to want to run. To get as far away from Narine’s place and its blood-soaked gardens as quickly as possible. To outrun the agony of Clara’s sacrifice and Cordelia’s betrayal and so much carnage. But it felt right to stay. To process the pain instead of papering over it.

When the conversation drifted into silence, Elena considered she should make a sweep of the house. She wasn’t the only one bearing the weight of the previous night’s horrors. Wasn’t the only one who’d been betrayed.

Marisol and Judith had gone together to look in on Dutch, and Elena tried not to make Marisol’s loss about her own guilt. Candela was still weak from having gotten hit with a stray lightning strike during the fighting, but Zuri was bringing her and Avani something to eat.

Elena hadn’t gotten very far in the house when she found Bernice sitting alone in the empty ballroom. The place where they’d laid so many plans and somehow not prepared for the aftermath. Maybe they’d been too scared to hope for an aftermath.

“This is dramatic… even for you,” Elena said while she walked across the space to where Bernice was sitting at the center, an empty chair beside her.

“I knew you’d come eventually,” she replied when Elena sat. “Something tells me you did not indulge in the post-battle, lustful high.”

Elena shook her head. She’d been relieved to hold Marisol and Zuri in the peace of their bedroom, but there had been no delirious exuberance of having survived.

Only quiet moments between rotating bouts of crying.

Some in relief but mostly in Marisol’s grief that Elena felt like the loss of her own mother’s.

“I didn’t see it. I didn’t see Cordelia for a traitor,” Bernice added as if the blame should fall on her. “She was always an annoying little shit… but those things she said.” Bernice closed her eyes when she swallowed hard. “Well… Let’s say I’ve heard it before, but not about them.”

Elena nodded. “I didn’t see it either,” she admitted after a while. “I was so focused on Sayah. I thought maybe she was even behind the band chasing the Aglion all over the fucking globe.” She gritted her teeth, wishing she could go back. Wishing she hadn’t been so single-minded.

“Not the best start to your vampire queen reign.” Bernice chuckled. “But memorable, I’ll tell you that.”

Elena shook her head and laughed, but Bernice only gave her a quirked brow.

“Bernice, have you lost your mind?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah, minding my own business. I have no interest in ruling over anything or anyone,” Elena said, surprising herself. “A year ago, I would have snatched that bloody crown and worn it with glee—”

“But now?”

Elena relaxed into her chair. Unclenched every muscle for the first time in a century. “I want to be with my family. I want to enjoy every moment until the nothingness comes to take me for the last time.”

Bernice watched her for a long time, dark eyes appraising. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”

“I didn’t expect to say it,” she admitted. “But everything is so different now. I can’t go back. I can’t bring myself to care about prestige or power or things. It all seems so stupid measured against what matters now.”

They sat in contemplative silence until Bernice said, almost to herself, “I was always sure I would love battle.” She looked down at her clean hands and Elena was sure she saw the same blood haunting Elena’s every thought.

“But it was gruesome. The cartel system was supposed to keep this from ever happening again.”

“I don’t know that anything can stop us from ourselves. At our cores we are greedy and jealous and ugly.”

Bernice looked at her again. “Not all of us.”

“Enough of us.”

Nodding, Bernice drifted into another long silence. “What do we do now? Sayah broke everything. We can’t just go back—”

“I’ll crown you queen,” Elena decided.

“What?” Bernice shrieked while she laughed.

“Who better? You fought to the end against Sayah and you threw yourself into the defense of the Aglion. I can’t think of a better person for the job. Smart and willing to do the right thing even when it’s hard.”

“But I don’t want to be queen—”

“Another excellent reason to give it to you.” Elena dropped to one knee. “Allow me the honor of being the first to pledge my fealty.”

“Oh, get up.” Bernice grabbed her by the arm and they both stood. “What about a ruling body instead?”

“Bureaucracy?” Elena shook her head. “Let’s put it to the others, but my vote is going to a regency.”

Selling the queendom idea to the gathered vampires was even easier than Elena had expected. With her full support, Bernice was selected as queen without challenge.

Back in her suite, Elena heard the shower running and found Marisol staring out at the ocean as the day slipped into night, gazing at the expanse of water like it might hold answers.

It was stupid to ask if she was okay, so she called her name instead.

“I keep wondering if the universe is ironic or just cruel,” Marisol said without looking away from the window.

“That I got to keep you at the cost of my mother. At the chance to get to know her outside of all of this. To ask her questions and be angry at her and tell her…” She sniffled. “That I forgive her.”

Elena resisted the urge to run toward her and embrace her. It felt wrong that she would comfort Marisol when it was her fault that her mother was dead.

“Were you going to spare her?” Marisol asked when she finally turned toward Elena. “Sayah, I mean. Were you going to spare her life?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “The fighting had been… not what I prepared for… and I… More death just seemed incomprehensible. But I don’t know what I would have done, Marisol.

All I wanted was a moment to make a cool-headed choice.

” Elena steeled herself for what she needed to say.

“I don’t know how the binding complicates things, but if you can’t stand to be with me—”

“What?” Marisol swept toward her. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s my fault, Marisol.” The truth of it was an axe blade lodged in the middle of her chest. Her throat burned with how much she wished it weren’t true.

“This is my fault,” she repeated when Marisol took her hands in hers.

“If I hadn’t been so blind to Narine and Sayah…

If I hadn’t been so arrogant.” She shook her head.

“If Sayah hadn’t come for me, your mother would still be alive. You could have a chance—”

“Or I never would have known her at all,” she shot back as Zuri walked into the room wearing pajamas and drying her hair.

“You don’t know that, but what you do know is that now you’ll never have a chance—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Zuri interrupted Elena and tossed the towel into the bathroom behind her. “I knew this shit was coming but I was hoping for at least twenty-four hours of rest first.”

Elena and Marisol turned to Zuri. She was already striding toward them like an irate mother that had been calling her children in for dinner to no avail.

Zuri glared at Elena, hands on her hips.

“You want to take an insane amount of responsibility for several things that were not within your control what-so-fucking-over, great. Have a fucking party. But you’re not going to take Clara’s choice and turn it into your own personal tragedy.

You’re not the only fucking person in the world who gets to decide what the hell they want for themselves.

She was a grown woman who made a powerful, impossible decision.

That was her prerogative, Elena. Not your failure. ”

When Zuri turned to Marisol her expression softened but her tone kept its edge.

“Your mother saw you. She saw this incredible, fierce, loving woman who had built a life and a family. She saw what you have with us. And she decided that protecting that, and you, was a legacy worth dying for.” Zuri’s eyes watered but she barreled forward.

“What I saw in Clara’s memories, Bambi, I can never forget.

” She took Marisol’s hand and interlaced their fingers.

“I will walk you into my memory of how deeply I felt your mother’s love for you any time you want.

I’ll take you there every day, if you want.

I’m not a mind-reader, baby, but I am so sure that she did exactly what she wanted to do.

And that she’d make the same choice again and again.

All she ever wanted to do was protect you.

” Zuri’s crying made her voice tremble and Elena’s knees weak. “And she did.”

Elena was crying when Zuri looked at her again.

“You want to honor her sacrifice? You don’t do it by drowning in what-ifs.

You do it by living the life she gave back to you.

You protect her people and give them a chance at standing still.

” She looked at Marisol again. “And you let us love the absolute hell out of you.”

Reality, unfair and raw, pushed Marisol over the edge. A choked sob escaped her lips and then she was collapsing forward, burying her face in Zuri’s shoulder, her body shaking with the force of her tears.

It was hours before they were back in bed together. Until Marisol’s weeping subsided.

Zuri had insisted on lying in the middle even though she was the one who complained about too much body heat the most. Elena was sure that after everything they’d been through, the heat of life, the weight of their bodies, was welcomed.

At least Elena would never tire of holding them this close.

Of spending the rest of her life loving them and honoring Clara’s sacrifice.

“We will get through this,” Elena promised with her head on Zuri’s chest.

“Together,” Marisol muttered like she might have been drifting to sleep with her head on Zuri’s shoulder after crying herself out.

Zuri’s arms were already wrapped around both of them, but she tried to pull them in ever closer. “To the very fucking end.”