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

Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Inside, Zuri chugged a glass of water before refilling the filtered pitcher. It was so fucking hot outside and she was exhausted and angry at her inability to show Bambi the simplest thing. How did she expect to run a fucking coven if she couldn’t even do this?

“I’m going to start taking it personally that you’re having all the fun out there without me,” Elena said from the armchair she’d been in all day. A different book she wasn’t reading sat in her lap.

She poured another glass of water and put it in the freezer to hurry up the cooling process. When she stepped into the main room, Elena was looking up at her with so much fucking amusement painted on her face.

“You know if she can’t heal you, you’re never going to get the hell out of here.” Zuri crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the kitchen doorway. “So you should look a little less like you’re on vacation.”

Elena’s shit-eating grin didn’t dim. She wasn’t showing nearly as much urgency as she should. For a moment, Zuri considered whether Elena would have done this to herself, but the woman couldn’t tolerate weakness. She wouldn’t… Would she?

“Maybe I don’t want to leave,” Elena said after a beat, dark eyes dancing with dangerous light. “Maybe I’m in paradise.”

Zuri laughed. “Oh, yeah, being trapped away from all your overpriced toys is truly the dream.”

“Maybe I’ve got all the toys I need,” she said, gaze fixed and daring.

“You’re going to owe me so fucking big,” Zuri said before turning around and retrieving the glass from the freezer. She had to get away from her arrogant energy. The one making her question too much. “So many zeros,” she shouted over her shoulder.

Elena laughed, reminding her that she knew Zuri didn’t give a single shit about money. She slammed the back door for good measure and walked into the tree line.

On the blanket, Marisol was stretched out, hands on her chest and eyes closed.

“Corpse pose?” Zuri joked, hoping not to scare the shit out of her if she was asleep. Using her power drained her batteries and she guessed it was probably the same for Bambi… even if she hadn’t managed to access it.

Marisol propped herself up on one elbow. Hair pushed back away from her heat-flushed face, her eyes were dazzling in the streaky sunlight. The lightest sheen of sweat covered her skin. God, couldn’t she at least have the decency not to be radiant?

“Here.” Zuri gave her the glass before sitting across from her.

Caught in a beam of sunlight, Marisol’s hazel eyes were a tapestry of green vines and the reddish brown of autumn leaves. “Thanks,” she said softly, like Zuri had given her a kidney rather than a simple glass of water.

Oh, for fuck’s sake .

“Do you think your grandmother knew about your ability?” Zuri asked, gaze on a mango tree across the clearing rather than on Marisol. “We can’t count out your sperm donor parent, but if you’re anything like witches and vampires, your gift would have traveled along your matriarchal line.”

“She used to tell me a lot of stories about the women in her family,” she replied after a beat, fingers going immediately to her pendant. “A lot of nurses, midwives, curanderas , that kind of thing.”

“And your grandmother?”

Marisol’s energy brightened, her eyes crinkling when she smiled and making it impossible for Zuri to tear her attention away a second time. “She was the home remedy queen.” Her lips eased into a broad smile. “She had a cure for everything.”

“She might not have known either,” Zuri said half to herself, “but she may have inadvertently passed on bits of knowledge handed down to her. They may be in your memories.”

Understanding turned Marisol’s expression serious. “So you want to do to me what you did to that guy in the hospital?”

Zuri shook her head. “No. It won’t feel like that. It won’t be scary, but you will experience the moments again. If that’s too?—”

“And you think there could be, what? Like, clues?”

Unable to withhold the unfortunate truth, Zuri set it free. “I don’t have any other ideas, Bambi. I don’t know how to teach you something when I don’t even understand it. There’s no?—”

“Okay,” she said before scooting close and sitting crossed-legged in front of her. “Do it.”

Zuri wanted to tell her that she couldn’t be so trusting. Marisol didn’t even know her and she was agreeing without understanding what she was subjecting herself to. How the hell hadn’t she been kidnapped by a stranger with a van?

Marisol set her empty glass aside. “What do you need me to do?”

Taking a deep breath, Zuri prepared herself to regret her idea. She shook out her hands and dried her palms on her thighs. She crossed her legs, knees bumping against Marisol’s when she shifted as close as possible.

“Close your eyes and give me your hands,” Zuri demanded but her stupid voice was too gentle.

Marisol obeyed without the slightest hesitation. She must own every timeshare ever made .

“Relax and think about the strongest memory of your grandmother you have.” Zuri closed her eyes too.

She doubted she’d find anything useful on her first attempt, but she was going to have to get comfortable inside Marisol’s mind if she hoped to find what they needed. She was going to have to know it as well as she knew Elena’s—a price she’d begrudgingly pay because she was a Class A simp who never learned her damn lessons.

As soon as Marisol slipped her warm hands into Zuri’s, she was dragged into her mind unexpectedly. Usually, Zuri had to wade in, but it was like Marisol had snatched her into Alice’s rabbit hole.

It took a disorienting second to find her bearings, images and sounds flashing like a strobe light until she landed in a small, sunbathed kitchen. Marisol, no more than ten, sat at a round kitchen table covered in a checkered red cloth. She was blonder and even more freckled then, but it was the light radiating from her that punched Zuri straight in the heart.

Across from her, a woman with pinned back salt and pepper hair was opening a huge green tin of crackers. Zuri knew, almost immediately, that there wouldn’t be a single cracker in there. She guessed rice, but when the woman opened it and spilled its contents on the table, she was proven only half right.

Releasing a mound of dried black beans between them, Marisol’s grandmother was humming. A sound that filled Zuri’s tense body with warm relaxation. It was what Bambi was feeling, she realized, having forgotten where she was. She was safe and warm and happy down to her marrow. The scent of the gardenias in a bowl by the sink filled the air with the comforts of home.

Zuri sat at the table. Even in the confines of her mind, her legs felt weak. It was a scene that could have been taken from Zuri’s life. She’d spent countless afternoons exactly like this with her own grandmother. Had seen her nearly every day of her life until she lost her the year before.

“I’ll give you ten cents for each one you find,” her grandmother said with a smile before they started sorting the beans.

Her chest constricted, Zuri recalled the painstaking task of sorting through beans alongside her grandmother, meticulously checking for any unwanted surprises. They’d done it hundreds of times, had hundreds of conversations about nothing and everything. It was the place where her grandmother handed down stories and advice and listened and laughed.

“Got one,” Marisol said with pure glee. A buzzing happiness spread over Zuri like sunshine.

And then they were gone. Yanked forward in time, even as they stayed in the same kitchen. The same table. But now the pepper in the woman’s hair had faded to dark gray, the white more prominent than before.

Sitting across from her, teenage Marisol looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. Panic and anxiety oozed from her in suffocating waves. Zuri’s chest was too tight to take a deep breath, and then the reason for Marisol’s fear became apparent.

“Are you upset because Tony asked another girl to the dance?” Marisol’s grandmother’s kind face reflected her agonizing worry, as if she was willing to do anything to solve whatever was making Marisol so miserable.

“It’s not him.” Marisol’s voice was so small, her eyes on the hands in her lap, gold necklace catching the light.

“What is it, mi vida?” Her grandmother leaned forward, extending her hand and reaching out for Marisol. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, can it?” She smiled softly, hand still open and waiting for Marisol. “Everything in life has a solution.”

A lump grew in Zuri’s throat, its tendrils wrapping around her heart and rooting in her lungs.

“It’s not him,” she repeated before forcing herself to glance up, hazel eyes huge and full of tears that were seconds from falling down her sun-kissed cheeks. “It’s… it’s who he asked.”

Her grandmother tipped her head to the side. “Is she your friend?” Zuri didn’t have to be in the woman’s memories to know she was desperate to understand what was happening. That she loved Marisol so much it bled from her pores.

“She was…” Marisol’s voice cracked, the dam of tears crumbling. “She was more than my friend.”

Registering no visible reaction, Marisol’s grandmother left her hand extended across the table, palm up and open. Zuri would have guessed that the woman hadn’t understood what Marisol meant, but she opened her mouth and cleared the doubt.

“Love feels so big right now,” she said, voice soft and dripping with empathy and compassion and a staggering amount of love. “It might feel like no one else will give you the butterflies the way she does.” She smiled. “That you’ll just never care about anyone else ever again, but I promise you, my precious heart, you have a lifetime of love ahead of you.”

Marisol’s shock registered on her face. “Abi… Did you already know?”

The woman’s hand didn’t budge. “I suspected,” she admitted quietly. “And I’m so happy that you told me.”

“And you’re not mad…” Marisol’s face flushed deep red. “That I… um… don’t think I like boys?”

The woman’s smile was unwavering, eyes glistening with so much affection it made Zuri falter. Finally, Marisol took her grandmother’s hand and Zuri felt the touch against her own palm.

“I could never be mad at you. You’re perfect just the way you are. And I love you more than you can understand. I will always be proud of you, my heart. Now, tell me what happened.”

Relief penetrated Zuri’s coiled muscles before they were off again. The scene shifted abruptly. Her grandmother’s warm, comforting kitchen disappeared, replaced by a sterile waiting room. The scent of antiseptic and bleach filled Zuri’s nostrils, a stark contrast to the cinnamon and clove and gardenia.

Marisol, older now, had her long, dark blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She sat on an ugly chair, her shoulders slumped, her gaze fixed on the floor. She wore white scrubs, the name of her nursing school etched into the patch on her short sleeve.

Grief, raw and suffocating, radiated from her like nuclear fallout and produced a visceral ache that twisted in Zuri’s own chest. It was a familiar pain, a bone-deep sorrow that mirrored the loss of Zuri’s own grandmother. A desperate desire to break from the reality that couldn’t be true.

A doctor, his face etched with a practiced sympathy, stood in front of Marisol, his hand resting on her shoulder. His words, though muffled, cut through the silence like shattering glass.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice low and gentle. “The accident… There was nothing we could do.”

Marisol’s head snapped up, her hazel eyes wide with disbelief. “No,” she whispered, her voice a broken rasp. “That’s not… She can’t be…”

The doctor squeezed her shoulder, his expression full of pity. “She was brought in unconscious,” he explained, his voice patient. “The impact… It was too severe. She never regained consciousness. But I expect the crash was so sudden that she didn’t know it was coming. She wouldn’t have experienced any pain.”

Marisol’s face crumpled, tears streaming down her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands, her body wracked with sobs. The grief was a physical force, a crushing weight that threatened to suffocate her.

Zuri felt it too, the pain of Marisol’s loss echoing through her own body. It was the same gut-wrenching sorrow she’d experienced when her own grandmother—her mentor, her confidante, her soulmate—had passed away. It was the kind of grief that left a gaping hole in your soul, a void that could never be filled.

The scene faded, the hospital room dissolving into a swirling vortex. Zuri gasped, her eyes flying open, her hands trembling. The sun in her face was jarring, and it took her more than a few seconds to be back in her body. To recognize that she was out of Marisol’s memory.

Marisol’s eyes were still closed, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. Zuri watched her, her heart aching. When Marisol opened her eyes, red and glistening and fractured, Zuri knew she should just say she was sorry for her loss. That she should leave and let her have a moment alone.

But Marisol’s fingers around hers were so tight, anchoring her to the spot.

“Bambi…” Zuri’s hoarse voice was her only clue that she’d been crying too.

“Sorry. I didn’t—” Marisol’s voice cracked, her words dissolving into a choked sob.

A sob Zuri caught with her own heart. She wanted to offer comfort, to pull Marisol into her arms and hold her close, to whisper words of solace and understanding. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. There was danger in that kind of vulnerability and they already had enough problems.

Marisol was still looking at her, eyes so big and screaming for her. “You probably think I’m so useless. I can’t even sit here and let you do your job without falling apart.”

“You don’t know what I think of you,” she said too harshly.

Marisol’s eyes flashed with hurt before she looked down. Eyes trained on her lap when she nodded.

Gritting her teeth, Zuri let go of her hands. “That… didn’t come out the way I meant it.”

Knowing the enormity of her bad idea but unable to stop it, Zuri reached out to tuck a strand of loose hair behind Marisol’s ear. The touch was too gentle. Too reckless.

And then Marisol’s eyes were on her again and her lips were parted and she was leaning in and Zuri wasn’t moving away.

“Is this okay?” Marisol whispered, too close to Zuri’s mouth for her to make a rational choice. For her to remember why it was such a mistake.

Zuri should have said no, but then Marisol’s lips were brushing against hers, soft and tear-salted. And there was nothing Zuri wanted more than to breathe in Marisol’s pain. To absorb it into herself—into a heart more suited to breaking.

Hand sliding to the back of Marisol’s sweat-damp neck, Zuri closed her eyes. Heart racing the moment Marisol’s breath hitched in surprise, Zuri kissed her.

Hesitant, Marisol’s lips moved tentatively against hers. Like she wasn’t quite sure how much pressure to use. Like she was afraid Zuri would pull away if she did it wrong. As if she didn’t understand the power of her allure.

When the tiniest sigh escaped Marisol’s mouth, Zuri’s hand tightened on her neck, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss. She couldn’t get enough of her taste, of the feel of her soft lips against hers, of the promise of her warm body.

It was a dangerous kiss, a rash indulgence. But in that moment, lost in the heat of Marisol’s mouth, she couldn't bring herself to care. She wanted this, needed this, craved the escape.

And then Marisol was pulling away, doubt a dark cloud blotting out the sun. “I’m sorry,” she whispered with her mouth while her eyes begged Zuri to tell her that there was nothing to be sorry about.

Heart pounding so hard it was obstructing her hearing, Zuri swallowed and tried to remember how to speak. “We should go inside,” she answered with the coward’s truth, fighting everything in her body not to kiss her again.