“What is the girl’s name? Call her over.” He tipped his chin toward Marie, who was wiping down a table at the far corner.
Rick raised his hand and caught Marie’s gaze. She was a mestiza—her father had married a native woman. Marie turned heads wherever she went, with her bright eyes and silky black hair. She came right over.
“Yes, sirs? What do you like?”
“Come here and sit by me for a moment,” Eduardo said, catching the young woman’s gaze. Her smile fell as the man took hold of her wrist and pulled her onto the bench beside him. Stroking the back of her hand, he murmured softly, and she sank willingly, powerlessly.
Eduardo raised the woman’s hand to his lips, almost as if he meant to kiss h
er in some gentle romantic gesture. Instead, he turned the hand over, parted his lips, and closed his mouth over the inside of her wrist.
Ricardo’s gut gave a jackrabbit leap, and he reached across the table for the demon’s sleeve. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
Eduardo eyed him, swallowing a mouthful of blood before licking his teeth. “This is an inn. I will have drink.”
“Let her go,” Ricardo said.
“What do you care about her?” He licked a stray drop of blood from the wound. Marie’s head slumped forward as if she slept. She was alive, her blood still pulsed; he hadn’t drunk very much of her.
“She isn’t yours.”
“Is she yours?”
“She’s nobody’s but her own. You can’t treat her like some rabbit you’ve caught in a snare—”
“But Don Ricardo, that’s exactly what she is to us. What all these people are.”
“All of them? I notice that you set your gaze upon the young woman, and not upon any of the strong men here.”
“Then what do you harvest? Where do you find your drink?”
“I ask,” he said. He didn’t know how to explain it. When he learned he didn’t need to kill to survive—well, he didn’t. He asked. It had worked so far.
“You ask,” Eduardo repeated. “Hmm.”
Marie started to wake up from the trance Eduardo had put her in. He patted her hand; she might have fainted.
“You must be very tired, señorita. You fell asleep for a moment. You should go have a drink and rest,” he said.
“Yes. Oh, I’m very sorry.” She smiled apologetically at Ricardo, as if she were the one who ought to feel ashamed.
“Quite all right.”
She fled.
Eduardo, face flush with new blood, regarded Ricardo. “You have been in this country all alone for a hundred years? You ought to be ruling it by now.”
“That is not my desire.” He didn’t want to rule; he wanted to live without doing too much damage. He wanted God to forgive what he had become.
By the sneer in his lips and his half-lidded gaze, Eduardo did not seem to think much of Ricardo.
“You must come to see the Mistress in Mexico City.”
“Why?” Ricardo said.
“Because it will be better if you come to her rather than making her send someone for you.”
Again, Ricardo resisted the urge to draw his sword. After all, he had questions, too. “All right. I will come to the city to visit your Mistress. How will I find her?”