For Love and Blood and Fury (Lilith’s Legacy #1)

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Crammed in the front seat of Zuri’s offensively small car, Elena took a deep breath when they pulled onto the highway. She’d never been happier to see Miami traffic in her life. And then she realized Zuri had gone south instead of east. Without knowing why, instinct told her she needed to go east. To the water.

“Why are you going the wrong way?” Elena snapped.

Zuri glared at her, eyes wild like a knife-wielding maniac was still holding his blade to her. The expression softened Elena and she reached for Zuri’s arm. The one that had been sliced open, but now only bared a long, jagged pink mark.

Staring at the scar, the rage of impotence hijacked Elena’s thoughts. She was the protector among them, and she’d failed to keep Zuri safe. She’d been worse than helpless. She was the reason Zuri and Marisol had been hurt. The reason they were running with her. Her belly flashed with a burning agony. Worse than putting them in danger, she had no way of keeping them safe. A situation she’d rarely experienced in the nearly 300 years of her second life.

“There’s not a chance I’m taking you back to your place,” Zuri said before snatching her arm back to put both hands on the steering wheel. “Someone followed me from your office. I’m fucking sure of it.”

There was a tremble pushing in at the edges of her words. Fearless Zuri was afraid, a realization more agonizing than the pain in Elena’s head.

“We’re going somewhere I know no one can touch us,” Zuri added.

Self-loathing melted into anger. According to Zuri, she’d been attacked on her turf. How was that possible? She struggled to remember, tired of being so out of control. So weak. Without admitting that Zuri was probably right because she’d be insufferable about it, Elena crossed her arms and decided to be annoyed that Zuri hadn’t brought her a change of clothes.

“Bambi, is your cat going to be okay without you?” Zuri glanced at her backseat passenger in the rearview.

“My name is Marisol,” she replied, an unexpected edge to her tone. “And what cat are you talking about?”

Zuri shrugged and Elena resisted a smirk. Hazing Marisol because she was jealous shouldn’t amuse her, but she couldn’t suppress every emotion.

“I don’t know. You just look like the kind of person who’d have cats. A few of them.” Zuri zigzagged across the relatively light traffic, attention constantly trained behind her. “Is there anyone you need to notify so they don’t call the police? Friends? Family? Landlord? Houseplant?”

Marisol’s energy dimmed and Elena felt it like fingers curling around her aching heart. She didn’t like the idea of Marisol being so alone.

Needing to change the subject, Elena shifted in her seat and was rewarded with a stabbing pain straight up her spine. The pain was improving, but so slowly she couldn’t imagine how long it would take to heal at this rate. “I don’t know why we have to be in this toy car.” She yearned for the leather seats that molded to her body. “Couldn’t we have picked up mine?”

“I’m so very sorry there wasn’t time to get your rolling Viagra commercial while I was trying to save your life.” Crossing four lanes of traffic in one diagonal move, Zuri scoffed. “What did you plan to do with Bambi? Strap her to the roof?”

Behind them, Marisol suppressed a laugh that lightened the discomfort lodged in Elena’s chest. She was happy to be a target if it put Marisol and Zuri on the same side.

An hour and a half later, they’d reached the furthest reaches of civilization. On a pitch-black, unmarked dirt road, they bumped toward a place Elena hadn’t expected to see again. She relaxed, grateful that Zuri was driving slowly for her benefit.

Flanked by a nature preserve, Zuri’s property was miles from anyone. It felt more like Zuri’s home than her apartment in the city. This was where her soul lived and flourished.

“And this is supposed to be safe?” Marisol asked after Zuri turned down another unmarked dirt road, this one littered with more potholes than the last. “A place in the middle of nowhere. Someone will definitely hear our screams.”

Memories returned with every familiar turn. Even Elena would have had a hard time finding Zuri’s place if she didn’t know where it was. The human scents were few and far between, and the overwhelming smell of the wild everglades masked so much. The dirt and gravel roads absorbed the smells within hours. And that was without the wards Zuri had on every inch of her property.

When Zuri smiled into the rearview, Elena was sure she would not be polite. “You’re very welcome to get the fuck out, Bambi.”

“Be nice,” Elena warned, even though Marisol looked like she wanted to challenge Zuri to a duel. She wanted them to get along, but a part of her relished the tension.

“Fucking pretty face,” Zuri mumbled before taking several more turns into the dead of night.

She pulled up to a chain link fence and got out of the car. Standing in the beams from the headlights, Zuri set to disarming the guardian wards before unlocking the fence.

“She’s not usually this cranky,” Elena lied when she turned her head to look at Marisol while Zuri worked.

Flushed cheeks visible under the cabin light, Marisol’s dirty blonde waves scraped the top of her shoulders. Worry bled from her big hazel eyes, and Elena wanted more than anything to soothe her disquiet.

“I’m going to fix this,” Elena vowed with every fiber of her being. “I promise.”

Marisol’s expression softened and Elena was back in the hospital. Lying in bed and looking up at the sweet, compassionate face. “How’s your pain?”

It wasn’t so much the question but the tone of Marisol’s voice that undid her. Despite what she’d seen, despite knowing what Elena was, Marisol looked at her like she had when Elena was terrified and confused upon waking in the trauma bay. She’d never met anyone with a bottomless well of kindness. Of compassion.

Chest tight in a new and horrifying way, Elena leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. Ah, fuck. Realizations hit her in waves. It’s okay. Just a little on-the-run time with a woman I want to sleep with… And a woman I still want to sleep with… What can go wrong?

Back in the car, Zuri was bitching about bloodsucking mosquitos, which Elena knew was a dig, but she let it go. Beyond the gates that Zuri had to jump out of her car again to close, were acres and acres of well-loved land that had been in Zuri’s family for three generations.

Eyes closed, Elena remembered it like she’d been there yesterday. Memories slammed into her like storm-tossed waves.

Even in the dark, she knew where the small orchard of tropical fruit trees stood all along the front of the property, concealing what lay beyond. Zuri’s massive glass greenhouse was larger than her actual house. But even the small barn and chicken coop were bigger than her house. A deliberate choice.

Zuri pulled the car to a stop in front of a charming cottage bathed in the silvery glow of the moon. The small house, with its peeling white paint, had a wide porch wrapping around two sides. Hanging baskets overflowed with ferns and flowering vines, their shadows dancing on the weathered wooden planks.

“Home sweet home,” Zuri said before kicking her car door open and coming around the passenger side.

Without the aid of the wheelchair, it was a struggle for Elena to get out of the car and up the porch step. The humiliation of using Zuri and Marisol like crutches burned in her chest. She kept herself from dropping to her elbows and crawling into Zuri’s house on her own steam by thinking of Marisol’s wings. With time and Zuri’s help, she was sure that Marisol would figure out how to use her healing power.

And the moment she could stand on her own two feet, she was going to transform into vengeance. She was going to tear out every traitorous heart with her fingers and fangs until there wasn’t a single being left to work against her. Filled with propulsive rage, Elena gritted her teeth.

Before she could exact her bloody revenge, she had to shimmy sideways through a tiny front door while dragging her left leg behind her because three adults couldn’t squeeze in at once. Clumsy and off balance, Elena dropped into the armchair closest to the door and looked around.

Zuri’s true home was a world away from Elena’s sleek, modern penthouse. It was a place of warmth and generations of love.

The front door opened onto a small sitting area with a coffee table and two worn armchairs. It was only a few steps to the rest of the room. Her house was bathed in moonlight streaming in through the wall of windows that covered more than half the house. Windows that were no longer protected by UV filtering film. The realization hit like a sharp, unexpected pang of regret. Zuri had clearly given up on the idea of Elena ever coming back.

She pushed aside the emotion, reminding herself that she was the one who’d ended things. She had no right to feel hurt. But the sight of the bare windows twisted something deep inside her just the same.

The sunroom was a library and a bedroom in one. At the center was a massive four-poster bed flanked by overflowing bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. Plants and herbs and flowers were everywhere. From dried herbs hanging from the exposed beams of the ceiling to luscious ferns in baskets and pots. It had always been a tiny paradise.

“No couch?” Marisol asked, her voice laced with curiosity as she stepped inside, her gaze darting around the room.

“Why don’t you go find one outside?—”

“Zuri,” Elena warned.

“Oh, get your Italian underwear out of your ass,” Zuri shot back while sauntering toward the small kitchen off the seating area.

“I don’t have any underwear,” she shouted back. “Want to help me with that?”

“Now I have to clothe her too,” Zuri grumbled then disappeared. A moment later, the familiar sound of water filling a kettle followed.

With nothing else to do, Marisol took the armchair next to Elena.

Regret flooded her body at the sight of Marisol’s obvious exhaustion. She was weary and scared. Elena stopped short of reaching out to touch her when she asked, “You okay?”

Marisol took a long, deep breath. “No,” she said, the truth of it punching what was left of Elena’s heart.