She shook her head. “No, pendejo. I meanhere,here. In DelOro.”
Carolina’s neck ached from tilting her head up at him. She didn’t like that he made her feel small. She was one of the shortest people in her entire family and had often been teased for it. Not that she cared. But she didn’t want this leech to assume he had the upper handbecauseof her size. Carolina straightened her spine and pressed close enough to feel his warmth.
Her brow furrowed.Warmth?She thought the dead were as cold as the ice sculpture of Abuelo. Her hand went to the monster’s chest. Heat radiated from him.
“How can this be?” she whispered to herself.
“Señorita,” he said, his voice thick and raspy. The notch on his throat bobbed. His eyes glazed with hunger.
Carolina pulled her hand back like she’d been burned.
“Why are you warm to the touch? And your eyes are brown, not ghastly red. What are you?” she demanded.
“A great hunter should understand her prey, no?”
Irritation sizzled beneath her skin.
She should have stuck her blade into his heart the first chance she had.
“Enough of this.”
She raised her dagger and brought it down.
The beast ducked out of the way, and her blade sank into a book of poetry behind him. She gasped. “That’s my favorite anthology!”
He flinched. “I’m sorry, but…”
His words were cut off as she flung a second dagger at him. He dodged to the right, but it grazed his shoulder before smashing into her mamá’s vase. The two halted, waiting for the fiesta to go quiet and for people to come running in. But the horns and laughter still resounded.
“You will pay for that,” she growled.
“But you threw it!” He had his hands up in surrender as she stomped toward him.
She grabbed her skirts and lifted them up.
The sediento had the nerve to appear scandalized. “Señorita, please.”
She pulled the reata from her thigh.
“Not this again.” He tried to back away, but there was nowhere for him to go. “Can you not speak like a reasonable…”
Carolina snapped the lasso into the air, catching him around his wrist. She tried to jerk him forward, but he did not budge. He wrapped his fingers around the braided leather and pulled. Carolina’s breath came out in a huff as she slammed into his torso. Her fingers splayed over his chest. She tried to push herself off, but he enclosed her in his arms.
“Let go of me,” she ordered, squirming against his grasp.
Stars above, did he have to feel so…so…good? His hold was strong and the muscles beneath his shirt and coat were hard but not in the bulky way of the men in her family. He felt…right.
“I will not release you until you agree to talk to me like two reasonable humans should.”
“You are not human, though. You’re a monster.”
“Ah sí. But which of us is trying to kill the other?”
She struck with her forehead, landing hard against his face. A single drop of black blood dripped from his nostril.
Shock fell over his features. “That hurt.”
“Yes, well. That was the point.” She dug the heel of her boot into his foot, and he hissed.
