He gulped. Forced his fangs to retract. Forced his knees to stop quivering.
“The…um…the legs on this table might need to be tightened,” he stuttered.
All focus then turned to the pregnant woman standing byFernanda.
She offered a shaky grin. “I didn’t care for that sculpture anyway. They got Don José Miguel’s nose wrong. It was much longer in real life, no?”
This was met with boisterous laughter and calls for more drinks in the hostess’s honor. The fiesta continued, but Lalo could not move. The young woman standing near his sister had slowly turned. Her eyes locked with his.
Lalo’s very soul, if he still had one, fled his body.
This was the fiend from the woods who had tried to murder him. He’d know that velvety scent from anything. And those eyes. Infinitely brown and shielded by black lashes. Those veryeyes had glared at him from behind her ridiculous mask.
Seeing her face, unmasked, startled him more than anything. Because—holy saints—she was the most stunning person he’d ever seen.
CHAPTER 8
Carolina
He came.
Carolina narrowed her eyes. The sediento was even more handsome than she first thought. Not that that mattered in the slightest. She should be concerned about getting out her stake, not about that little dimple in his chin.
Her adrenaline spiked.
Not only had the sediento entered her home as if he owned it, but he had decimated the ice sculpture of her abuelo. Was that some sort of declaration of war?
“Brother!” Fernanda swept past Carolina, slipped her arm around the young man’s elbow, and tugged him forward. She beamed. “Señor and Señora Fuentes, allow me to introduce my very clumsy brother, Eduardo Montéz.”
The boy gave an uneasy half grin. He looked so human. His irises were a beautiful shade of honey. His skin a warm brown.
Carolina still couldn’t make sense of his appearance, which was neither ghastly nor monstrous.
“Call me Lalo,” he said, offering his hand to Papá. “Eduardo was my father’s name.”
Carolina’s eyes widened as her papá took it and gave it a hearty shake. Would he notice what this Lalo was? Would a great battle commence right in the middle of her foyer? He better not. Lalo was hers to kill.
Papá laughed. “A good handshake you have there, son. I often explain to my boys how one can tell the true nature of a man by the heartiness of his greeting. And you”—Papá clapped Lalo on the back—“have got one hell of a grip.”
Lalo didn’t even flinch when Papá smacked his shoulder. And everyone did. Papa’s hands were like mallets. She pursed her lips. That was the exact spot she had stuck him through with her blade. He had healed then. As only a true vampiro could.
“This is my wife, Señora Fuentes. My niece, Antonina. Our family friend, Rafael. And my lovely daughter, Carolina.”
“A pleasure,” Lalo said.
His voice was so soft and deep. Carolina felt suddenly overheated. She shouldn’t have left her fan back in her room.
Lalo’s gaze flicked to Carolina, and her stomach clenched.
Mamá tilted her chin. “Do you two know each other, too?”
Whatever spell they’d both been under popped like a bubble. The sounds of the ballroom filled her ears. The laughter. The mariachi. The ruckus.
“No,” Carolina and the sediento said in unison, which only added to her mamá’s suspicion.
He chuckled shyly and, by the stars, her knees weakened. She locked them. She could not and would not have waywardthoughts about a sediento. The main reason she wanted him there was to prove to her papá that she could handle her own against one.
“Apologies, but I must take my leave,” Lalo said.
