Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Zuri approached the coven house, the scent of night-blooming jasmine and mildew a familiar but unwelcome greeting. Even before she reached the porch steps, a wave of despair punched her in the throat. The magic, once a vibrant force that grew from the house’s foundation, was faint. She already knew, with a sickening certainty, that they’d lost more witches.
She wanted to call Candela and Avani, to share the burden of this grief, to wallow in their rage together. But the memory of unanswered texts and calls held her back. She didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know they were pissed. She’d iced them out, shut them out, retreated into the chaos of Elena’s bullshit. And now, she didn’t have the energy to answer for her silence.
Fucking Elena .
She felt heavy and old and tired. The weight of the future and the past pressed down on her. She wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head. To find a way to stop giving a shit. To let it all be someone else’s burden, someone else’s inherited duty.
Instead, she turned away from the house, heart aching and spirit depleted. She drove back to her duplex on the edge of the Grove. After parking her car on the gravel drive because her landlord refused to make real parking spaces, it took her several minutes to muster the energy to get out.
Inside her apartment, the silence was deafening. She didn’t bother turning on any lights while she moved through the tight two bedroom. Dropping onto her bed face first like she was belly flopping into a pool, she groaned into her pillow.
She imagined what her grandmother might say if she was there. If she were sitting across from her at the kitchen table, eyes twinkling with mischief, her smile warm and hard to earn. How would she keep the coven together? How far would she go?
She rolled onto her back, annoyed that her grandmother didn’t feel like talking to her. She blinked up at her ceiling. She’d never felt more alone in her life.
Zuri closed her eyes again. The image of Elena and Marisol, tangled together in her bed, flashed through her mind. The memory of their laughter, their shared intimacy, the warmth of their connection… It ached in her chest and reminded her again that she was alone.
It had been so easy, so natural, to fall back into that rhythm with Elena. To slip into their familiar little dance of push and pull. To feed the desire they both knew could only end the way it had the first time—in heartbreak. And Marisol, with her gentle heart and surprising bite, had fit into their dynamic with a surprising ease.
Zuri had felt more at home in the last few days than she had in years. But it was stupid. Pointless. It was a little sex and now it was over and she had to attend to her actual problems that didn’t involve vampires or angels.
Against her will, her thoughts drifted back to the cottage and their seclusion. There had been something about the three of them together. Of how Marisol softened something in Elena. In both of them.
Triangles were the strongest shapes, weren’t they? She couldn’t remember jack shit about high school geometry, but there was something about weight distribution. About resilience and supporting heavy loads.
Had that been the original idea for the triumvirate? To give the coven strength and balance? She shut her eyes and tried to sleep, but her thoughts took off in a sprint.
Whatever the hell the founders of her coven had planned was failing, their leadership killing them. They weren’t projecting power—they were breeding stagnation.
Maybe they should have written some fucking term limits into the governing codes. To have thought about how to protect the triumvirate from itself.
Anger flashed in her body. She was on her feet and cursing the entire way to the small bathroom between the two bedrooms. It wasn’t time to start the long process of washing her hair, but she needed to do something with her body. She needed to feel clean. Purged.
I should start my own damn coven , she thought, standing under the shower and its annoyingly weak water pressure. Over time their coven had added so many rules and guidelines and bullshit, but really all she needed were three people, a piece of land to consecrate, and a powerful artifact.
It was the last element that made her chest heavy. Sure, I’ll just pop by the Goodwill and pick one of those right up. Fuck . She thought of the ancient anchor buried deep beneath the coven house. Salvaged from wreckage found off Cuba’s southeastern coast, it was strong enough to fuel generations of witches. Where the hell was she going to find something like that?
Annoyed, she applied a hydration mask to her hair and tried to think about something else. But her brain was intent on tormenting her. Trapped in the shower’s silence because she’d been too distracted to grab her phone so she could at least play some music, she slipped back to the cottage.
Why did everything have to be so fucking complicated? Elena hadn’t changed in any of the ways that counted. She still didn’t want to suffer another loss, and Zuri couldn’t blame her. Elena hid behind her bravado and status to pretend that nothing fazed her, but in her iron chest was a heart that limped more than it beat.
If she were Elena, she’d only look for love with another vampire. Wondering as she had before, Zuri considered the possibility that Elena was cursed somehow. Or that she hated herself so much, wanted to punish herself so badly, that she could only give her heart to people who couldn’t hold it through no fault of their own.
Resting her forehead against the warm tile, Zuri took a deep breath. If she could have given herself to Elena all those years ago, she would have. But she knew herself too well. Knew that if she traded her truest self—the witch blood that connected her to her grandmother and all the women who’d come before her—she’d spend the rest of her endless life resenting the choice. Resenting Elena. That was no life.
Elena could still have that with Marisol. Marisol didn’t even know what the hell being an Aglion even meant. She could make the trade. And she was so fucking alone. Her chest tightened and made it impossible to take another deep breath. The pain in that girl’s memories was suffocating, the weight of her isolation staggering. But it didn’t have to be that way. She could choose a life with Elena—if either of them wanted that. There was no reason for them to be alone.
Zuri’s mind leapt forward and played out the scenario in her mind. She couldn’t imagine Bambi as a vampire. The girl wouldn’t eat anything with a face. There was no way she was going to drink blood. Although… there was always explicit consent. She’d like that.
Picturing Marisol with fangs nearly made her laugh. She was so bright, so annoyingly sweet. Zuri couldn’t imagine her ethereal wings replaced with the shadows that swirled around them when Elena drank.
Trying to see it, Zuri imagined Marisol dark and ravenous. She’d certainly had moments of absolute hedonism. Nobody in that hospital would have ever looked at Marisol, with her big bright eyes and cute freckles, and believed she was absolutely filthy. Zuri would never have guessed.
Desire roared to life low in Zuri’s belly against her will. She couldn’t forget Marisol on top of her, face painted in gorgeous agony while she begged them both for more.
Fuck .
Running her hand down her abdomen and between her thighs, Zuri found herself turned on even though she was so sore. There was no way she could really want more. She could still hear Marisol’s soft voice against her ear. She could taste her kiss.
She thought of Marisol with fangs again, and this time it didn’t seem so stupid. She pictured herself lying on her back, pinned to the bed… Elena and Marisol, fangs exposed and lust making their eyes black as midnight. And there was nothing that could satisfy their raging desire but Zuri. Nothing they wanted more than her body.
Closing her eyes, she found her clit with her fingertips and used her free hand to brace herself. She writhed beneath them, begging and pleading and cursing until they finally gave her what she needed. Her neck burned where she imagined their bites on either side of her. Felt their hands on her instead of her own. Felt herself arching off the bed and giving herself so completely that there’d be nothing left of her.
Souring the fantasy, Zuri imagined herself aging in fast forward. Saw herself wither away while Elena and Marisol remained unchanged. Chest aching at the image of them mourning for her, Zuri pulled her hand away and washed the product out of her hair so aggressively her scalp ached.
It was so unfair. So fucked up. Why did she have to feel this way? Why couldn’t she find a nice witch and have a normal fucking life? No, not for her. She had to still be in love with a vampire she couldn’t have, and had to complicate it with whatever the hell she was starting to feel for Bambi. Yep. That sounded like her kind of karmic price. She must have been a real dog-kicking dickbag in her last life.
When she was finished with her shower, she started the usually relaxing process of styling her hair into tighter curls. She was still angry when she was finished, but she couldn’t decide which steaming pile of fucking bullshit was responsible.
Too annoyed to get dressed, she threw on a robe and roamed aimlessly into the kitchen. She wasn’t even hungry, but she needed to do something or she was going to lose her damn mind. The knock at the door came while she was staring into the fridge like new options might appear if she just waited long enough.
She was sure that it was Candela or Avani at the door—maybe both. The three of them were so close, they could probably feel her return even if they didn’t have her location on their phones. She couldn’t pretend not to be home. Her stupid car was outside, but maybe she could pretend to be asleep. The microwave clock said it was nearly ten. That was late enough.
The knock came again, and Zuri slammed the fridge door closed. They were probably worried, and that wasn’t fair. She was being a selfish asshole. Her least favorite type of asshole.
She almost checked the peephole, but from the gaps in her partially closed blinds she saw an insane number of black SUVs outside. Her lady caller was unmistakable. Heart hammering, she hated the visceral reaction her body had. Every damn time, she thought, because she was biologically predisposed to terrible ideas.
Pulling the door open like she was being incredibly inconvenienced, she had her hand on her hip and her freshly plucked brows pulled in a furrow. At her door, Elena was nothing short of stunning.
In a crisp white vest, no shirt, and high-waisted white trousers, her olive skin was luminous. Her long, wavy dark hair was perfect where it spilled over one shoulder. Makeup applied by the fucking gods, she was gorgeous. Zuri’s heart ached for her. It pushed against her chest like it wanted to jump into Elena’s arms even if Zuri’s body was too stubborn to move. An unacceptable reaction.
“Hi.” Elena’s blood-red lips eased into a smile.
All Zuri wanted to do was pull her inside and tell her she was tired of fighting and running and trying to protect them both from more heartbreak. From a disastrous end they couldn’t rewrite. She wanted to tell her to accept that they were headed for disaster, but they should take every drop of happiness they could get anyway. Take that shit and run and pay the tab later.
“You can’t just show up at my door unannounced,” she said, voice so dry and cold that it would have broken a lesser soul. Elena’s smile was unmoving, even as Zuri slammed the door in her face.
A second later, the phone she’d left in her bedroom dinged. Wishing her body wasn’t alive with the thrill of seeing her, Zuri indulged her curiosity and snatched the phone off the bedside table.
Unknown Number: It’s Elena. I seem to have lost my phone. This is a new one. I’m in the neighborhood. Would love to see you. XO.
She bit her bottom lip, but it was too late to eradicate her smile. Dropping the phone back on the bed without responding, Zuri went to her closet. She grabbed the highlighter yellow bodycon dress that made grown men weep. It was almost too cruel, but Zuri was sick of safe. What the hell was one more night of poor decisions?
Nearly two hours later, Zuri was putting the finishing touches on the best makeup job she’d ever done. She slipped into the black stilettos with metal spikes for heels and looked at herself in the mirror behind her bedroom door.
Don’t forget who the fuck is in charge here .
She smirked at her reflection, lips full and glossy nude. It was a good thing Elena was immortal, and quite unfortunate that Bambi wasn’t, but maybe angels couldn’t die from cardiac arrest.
When she opened her front door again, black clutch purse under her arm, Elena was still standing exactly where she’d left her. Eyes bulging, she looked at Zuri like she wanted to eat her. Fangs extended with her second smile, Elena moved toward her.
“You’re still here,” Zuri said like she was disappointed rather than exhilarated. She said it like she wouldn’t have felt very stupid if Elena hadn’t stayed. If Elena had forgotten how to read her actions and not her words.
“I’d wait forever by your door,” Elena said, tone ready for a Shonda Rhimes-level dramatic monologue.
Instead of pulling her inside, Zuri stepped around her and started toward the cars. Well, one in particular. The absolutely ridiculous white sports thing that looked more like a kid’s drawing than a real vehicle people paid obscene amounts of money for.
“Where are you going?” Elena asked while following her out to the walkway.
“To get Bambi, obviously,” she replied without looking at her.
“You know where she lives?” Elena didn’t hide the amusement in her voice or stop herself from resting her hand on Zuri’s ass while they walked.
“I’m sure you do.” She stopped at the passenger door of Elena’s dumb car, ignoring the formation of black SUVs and vampires standing on high alert all around them like Elena was Franz Fucking Ferdinand. Her neighbors were going to love this. She was definitely going to end up on the onlyindade Instagram page. Again.
Elena opened the door for her, but stood between her and the car to block her entry. “I thought you didn’t care about her, or me, for that matter.” Her gaze was fixed on Zuri’s mouth and begging her to disagree.
“I don’t,” she lied. “I just don’t want Bambi to die because you pissed someone off bad enough that they want to fucking murder you, and you can’t even be bothered to remember who.”
Elena laughed and extended her hand to help Zuri into the obnoxiously low seat. Taking it because she was an idiot who couldn’t stop making this mistake, Zuri slid inside.