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

Chapter 54

Chapter Fifty-Four

Sitting alone on the terrace, Zuri finished her wine. The city lights reflecting off the glassy high-rises around her blurred and faded. It was a product of her unfocused gaze rather than the modest splash of cab in her glass.

If Zuri had to pick the single strongest emotion breaking out of the glob swirling in her gut and cresting into her chest, it would be tired. Was tired an emotion? It felt like a fucking emotion.

It felt like cement in her bones and lead in her heart. Each beat was more constricted than the last. The muscle had fallen into the quicksand she’d been warned about as a kid. Each struggle to pump only hastening the end.

She hadn’t wanted to be here. Hadn’t intended to be back in Elena’s orbit. But there she was anyway. Sitting in a different over-the-top, ostentatious-ass luxury property with the same damn fear crushing her in a choke hold.

Life with Elena would always be like this. As much as she touted her bullshit about vampires being so evolved that they’d moved beyond conflict, they would always be beings defined by violence. Even the first moment of their second life wasn’t a savage bite and bleeding nearly to death, they were still born from humanity. And humans never stopped wanting and scheming and climbing and killing.

When witches challenged each other, it was rarely deadly. They were of the elements and the natural order. Life should only be sacrificed when life itself hung in the balance.

Zuri closed her eyes and let the breeze move around her. She needed the clarity the wind granted her. Needed to slow everything down and examine it piece by piece. At the very least, she needed to decide whether she was leaving. Whether she was choosing to stay.

Calling on her grandmother, Zuri imagined her drifting gracefully onto the terrace before immediately unleashing a tirade of questions: Where the hell are you? What are you doing here? Oh, is that teak?

She relaxed at the thought of that, pulse easing into more of a jog than a sprint. Wrestling her attention back to her breath, she lost the image of her grandmother’s gray and white curls. A few moments after the conjured image vanished completely, her grandmother’s real voice resonated inside her skull. Not with words but vibrations. A tuning fork struck against bone. A hum that reverberated in her being.

Grasping for her, Zuri willed herself to remember the warmth of her tight embrace. The comforting scent of her skin mixing with blooming gardenias, the aroma of savory food simmering in pots. Of herbs and soil and oils.

“You’ve gotten fiercer since you last called.” Even in her mind, she heard her grandmother’s knowing chuckle. Could almost see her amused little grin.

“Don’t pretend you don’t see everything, viejita .” Zuri’s chest tightened, but she reminded herself not to harbor a second of sadness. She still had some contact with the person she’d loved most in life. It was enough and she was fortunate.

“I can’t say it surprises me. That vampire always had such a pull on you.”

Zuri imagined her grandmother looking into the condo from the terrace. Imagined her milky brown eyes tracking Elena’s movements inside. Her grandmother had never been afraid of anyone in life or death.

“Yeah, well. I didn’t plan to get tangled up here.” She stopped short of talking about the coven. Of telling her how she’d been feeling unmoored. The coven mess was like a fire in the shed, and she was more worried about the whole house going up in flames.

“Didn’t you?” Her grandmother laughed in earnest and Zuri imagined looking at her from across the kitchen table—Marisol’s kitchen table—small espresso cup to her grandmother’s lips before she sipped. “Oh, pero mija , who is that?”

Zuri regretted having thought of Bambi. She wasn’t the problem right now either. Marisol was just… She searched for words, but none showed up for work.

“Both of them at once?” Her grandmother’s surprise was mixed with unexpected delight. “Good for you,” she decided abruptly. “You know, during the Summer of Love, I myself took more than one lover?—”

Zuri cringed at the word lover . “If you put that thought in my head, I’m never honoring you with that overpriced rum you like so much.”

Her grandmother’s laughter filled Zuri’s mind and chest and tired heart. “So it’s not just fun you’re having.”

“Stop digging around in there,” Zuri snapped. “That’s not what I called you for?—”

“It’s exactly what you called me for, mija .”

Zuri dropped her tensed shoulders. Oh for fuck’s sake, she didn’t have to say it out loud.

“Why are you ignoring your own heart, mi nina ?” Her grandmother’s energy eased out of amused and into concerned. Zuri wanted to tell her she was wrong, but it was impossible to lie like this. Impossible to hide.

“Because I can’t do this again, Ela .” Zuri hadn’t used the nickname for a decade before her grandmother passed on.

As a baby, Zuri had turned abuela into Ela . And, gods, that’s how she felt again—like a stupid child. There had rarely been a time Zuri didn’t know her own mind. Didn’t know what she wanted. But now, she was trapped in the waiting—hoping someone else could decide for once.

“You’ve already decided, mija .”

Zuri shook her head.

“You decided the moment you went looking for her.”

Emotions stabbed the backs of Zuri’s eyes. She shut them tighter. She wasn’t going to fucking cry and complete the lost child costume she couldn’t rip off.

“Elena either loves you enough to lay down her life for yours, or that girl wastes a lot of time pretending when no one is looking.” There was a long pause. “And your new companion… She is not only smitten… All that light inside of her is coming from quite the fire.”

The thought that her grandmother was doing ghostly recon made Zuri chuckle. She wanted to ask her what she meant, but when her grandmother spoke again, her voice was already further away. Already fading.

Shit . If she was going to be spending so much time in Elena’s perch, she was going to have to bring her grandmother’s shrine. If she were home, she’d light her grandmother’s favorite cigar and pour her a little shot of rum to keep her a few minutes longer.

“Stop ignoring what your heart tells you and trust it.”

“My heart.” Zuri laughed. “Since when has that bitch been trustworthy?”

“Love is not meant to be easy or safe. It requires courage, vulnerability, a willingness to hold out the most raw part of yourself and risk it being trampled?—”

“You’re really selling this, old lady.”

“Stop fighting yourself, mi vida . There are other struggles needing your attention.”

“What?” she whispered, but there was no response.

Her grandmother’s sudden departure was an icy fissure opening in her chest. Damn it .

“Hey.” Elena’s voice behind her would have made her jump if she hadn’t been lost in the echo of her grandmother’s words. “Let’s get this over with.”

Zuri whirled around. “I’d love to see what a couple’s counselor would have to say about that attitude toward open and honest communication.” She crossed the terrace in long strides.

“I didn’t know we were officially a thing and already we’re in therapy,” Elena joked, even if her mood was still stormy.

Zuri jammed her empty glass in Elena’s hand. “Yeah well, don’t ruin it by talking.”

Elena’s eyes were dark in the starless night, her skin cool where their fingers brushed when she took the glass. “More liquid courage?”

“Liquid patience,” she lied before stepping into the house.

She didn’t really want any more wine, she just needed a second to collect herself. Too many things were swirling in her mind at once. She just needed to force it all into submission. Gain control of it, or the situation, or herself—she wasn’t sure.

In the powder room off a living room so big it was mostly empty space and white furniture Bambi’s future cat would wreck, Zuri leaned over the sink. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that to figure out what she was going to do, it would be pretty fucking helpful to know what she wanted.

Zuri shut her eyes against the lie. She knew what she wanted… it was just the wrong thing to want.

She was tired again when she stepped out of the bathroom. Elena was seated on the long, curved white leather couch. No wine in sight. It was probably just as well, Zuri’s thoughts were already muddled.

“I have to go,” Elena said when she looked up at her, tone missing all its bite.

“Is this really the only way? Killing? Risking your life?” Marisol asked when she appeared from the bedroom. Hair wet and in nothing but a T-shirt, she’d obviously taken Zuri’s snarky advice literally. “Violence just breeds more violence, Elena. You kill these people for killing your… subjects? Children?” She shook her head like she was still unsure, but realized that the specifics didn’t matter. “They killed people close to you, so now you’re going to kill them. But you can’t dive into the water without making waves. Someone is going to seek you out. To escalate this fight even further.”

Elena’s tense body softened. Looking at Marisol with something like regret, she hesitated to speak, as if every syllable carried immeasurable weight. “Then I will have to be sure to leave none who would seek revenge.”

“I just hate this so much,” Marisol said so quietly, but it burned in Zuri’s chest.

It was normal to reject violence. To be revolted by it at this scale. What did it say about Zuri that the only life she cared about in the impending melee was Elena’s? That she wanted her to slaughter every piece of shit who wished her ill? That she wanted the people who might ever come after Bambi extinguished.

It probably said that she was just as fucked up as Elena, and Marisol should run the hell away from them both. She was still so unencumbered by choices she couldn’t unmake.

She should go and Zuri should tell her so, but she couldn’t make her mouth move. She couldn’t look into the eyes that had been crying so much that the green and honey of her irises looked like they’d been hand-painted by Militia of Babylon. A parting gift from an ancient beauty lost to time.

Zuri was trapped. It was too late. She was in too deep to walk away, so she walked toward assured destruction instead, the faint scent of gardenias leading the way.

Elena stood, meeting Zuri at Marisol’s side just before Marisol started crying again. “I’m just so scared,” she admitted, a crack in her voice that triggered Zuri to rest her hand on Marisol’s lower back while Elena slipped her arm around her waist.

“Me too,” Elena responded in a way Zuri would never have expected.

Zuri looked away from Marisol’s flushed face and at Elena’s unprotected one. It was rare for Elena to drop her fanged baddie persona, her fearlessness. Zuri had only known this side of her in rare moments alone.

“I…” Emotion swelled in Elena’s voice and ended any illusion Zuri entertained about not being so fucking all-in it was pathetic. “I wish I could say that it is easy to leave you and do what I must. There is no doubt in my mind that I will return.” She let her gaze drift between Marisol and Zuri like a gentle touch. “But there is the thinnest spider silk thread of risk. I’ve lived long enough to believe that anything is possible and nothing lasts forever.”

“Then don’t go,” Marisol begged because she was braver than Zuri. Because she could somehow see beyond revenge in a way Zuri couldn’t. Because she didn’t know that creatures, vampire or otherwise, willing to kill without remorse would never stop. That when you’d already gone too far, the road back was blocked.

For a fraction of a second, Elena looked like she might consider it. Like she wished she could consider it.

“She’ll be back,” Zuri said with a voice too heavy to be hers. “You know how that Spanish saying goes.” She swallowed around the dry lump in her throat. “Bad bugs never die. She knows she has no fucking choice but to come back in one piece.” Zuri wrapped her prayer in a threat.

Elena’s attention lingered on Zuri, boring into her. “No matter how many times the road forks, it keeps leading me back to you.” She reached out, finding Zuri’s hand and intertwining their fingers to break Zuri’s grip on her own emotions. “I’ll never lose my way again.” She turned to Marisol while Zuri tried to remember how to speak. “And fate forged a new path to you.” She pulled Marisol closer. “Our missing piece. I won’t break your heart with more loss,” she promised before kissing her.

Marisol’s deep flush rushed from her neck straight up to her forehead, setting every freckle on fire. Eyes wide and glistening when she eased out of Elena’s kiss, she looked at Zuri as if expecting her to disagree. She couldn’t. There was only one weak objection she had left to lodge, and it had nothing to do with Bambi.

“Nothing has changed,” Zuri said despite the ache in her chest. “I am not turning and you don’t want to outlive another… relationship.” She couldn’t bring herself to call it love. Naming things gave them power and life. “What’s the point of putting ourselves through this again? It’s going to end the same way it did the first time.”

When Elena met her gaze, she looked like the girl in her memories. An untamed tempest thrashing in her dark eyes. She wore the ignorant hope of youth in the smile tugging on one side of her lips. “Enduring the pain of missing you to avoid the pain of missing you… has not exactly worked out as I expected.” She drew in a breath too deep to be human. “I accept you… as you are… for as long as you are.”

Heart pounding hard enough to make her dizzy, Zuri shook her head. “And what if you regret that when?—”

“I can’t possibly regret it as much as I have regretted letting you walk out of my life.” Elena turned to Marisol again. “Though I fear those fates of yours might have seen that there would be a reward for waiting.”

In five years, Zuri had been completely unable to let Elena go. Despite amulets and spells aimed at releasing Elena’s hold on her heart, she’d stayed hers. Resisting felt futile. Felt like something she was fucking tired of doing.

“So, what? Ride it till the wheels fall off?” Zuri joked while surrendering into the current pulling her into Elena and Marisol.

“Got any better ideas?” Elena let go of her hand to cradle her jaw instead.

“Maybe this time the wheels will keep spinning,” Marisol said before kissing Zuri, lips soft and warm and burned into her useless heart. “I don’t have your history,” she whispered before pulling away. “I can’t compete?—”

“There’s no competition, Bambi,” Zuri interrupted before the doubt in her hazel eyes grew. “I don’t know exactly what we’re doing?—”

“And that just drives you crazy,” Elena said with too much confidence.

“ But ,” Zuri set her bitch glare to kill before softening, “what we’re definitely not doing is competing.” She took Elena’s hand again and with the other, ran her fingers through Bambi’s damp hair. “I hate to admit when Elena is right, but something here feels annoyingly right. Let’s just focus on getting through tonight.” She caressed the nape of Bambi’s neck with her fingertips. “We have so much to discover about each other.” There were words of balance and strength and support in Zuri’s heart, but she left them lodged in her throat. She’d cracked herself open enough for a year.

Elena’s energy shifted, stiffening like a soldier snapping to attention. “I hate to leave like this.” She didn’t need to add that she was running out of time and her mob’s pitchforks and torches were getting cold.

Zuri pulled Elena in, kissing her hard and deep and warning her with every swipe of her tongue and nip of her teeth that she better come back. That she better not break her heart. That she better end every piece of shit who would even dream about hurting her again.