A Cruel Thirst

Coming 12.17.24

“Vampires, ancient evil, and forbidden romance? Montoya brings it all!”—Tracy Wolff, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Crave series

A fledgling vampire and a headstrong vampire huntress must work together—against their better judgment—to rid the world of monsters in this irresistible romantasy.

Carolina Fuentes wants to join her family in hunting the bloodthirsty vampiros that plague her pueblo. Her father, however, wishes to marry her off to a husband of his choosing, someone who’ll take her away from danger.

Determined to prove she’d make a better slayer than wife, Carolina vows to take down a monster herself. But when she runs into un vampiro who is somehow extremely attractive and kind, her plan crumbles.

Lalo Villalobos was content leading a perfectly dull life until un vampiro turned him. Now forced to flee his city, he heads to the pueblo where he believes the first vampiro was made. Surely its residents must know how to reverse this dreadful curse. Instead of finding salvation, Lalo collides with a beautiful young woman who’d gladly drive a dagger through his heart.

Fortunately, Lalo and Carolina share a common enemy. They can wipe out this evil. Together. If his fangs and her fists can stay focused, they might just triumph and discover what it feels like to take a bite out of love.

Chapter 1

Lalo

Lalo Villalobos hated many things. Long walks, crowded streets, unkempt suits, people. But one thing he hated above all else was his word not being taken seriously. Tonight, he would prove to everyone he was no fool.

The parchment in his hand shook like the remaining leaves on the trees rustling overhead. He stepped beneath the light of a lantern and eyed the paper once more to make certain he had read his handwriting correctly. He had, of course. He knew this location to be correct, but he couldn’t quite let himself believe it. All this time, his parents’ killer had been lurking close by.

He walked past this very building almost every day and never had a single suspicion that the monster dwelled within. Even in the moonlight, Lalo could see that the three-story structure was clean and well kept with wrought-iron awnings and a black tiled roof. It looked perfectly ordinary within the bustling city of Los Campos. Lalo and his sister, Fernanda, lived less than four streets away, in a townhouse constructed in a similar style.

In that very townhouse one year ago, he stood by his bedroom window and witnessed his parents being murdered under flickering streetlamps. He watched in paralyzing horror as a woman with auburn hair, pale skin, and delicate hands tore into their throats and left nothing but corpses behind.

Lalo shuddered and stuffed the paper into his pocket. As he did, his fingers grazed against the wooden stake he’d carved from the root of a willow tree. Vampiros couldn’t stand the touch of tree roots. Lalo thought that fact extremely odd when he first learned it, until he understood the origins of their kind. They were born from a selfish human willing to make a deal with one of the gods of the underworld. Any person who had gone to religious instruction as a child would know these gods are tricksters. Deals with devils always came with a price.

Tecuani was the first god one met when they entered the Land of the Dead. He was the hunter of hearts. His lone purpose was to ensure a person was truly deceased before they moved past his domain and into their next trial in the Land of the Dead. Tecuani was there to make certain a person’s heartbeat no longer thumped within their chest and that their soul was no longer connected to the Land of the Living. If he found someone with a pulse, he took on the form of a jaguar and chased them down. He clamped his fangs into their flesh and drained their blood until there was none left.

Tecuani was bound to the Forest of Souls, the initial stop for the newly departed. If he tried to move past the tree roots that stood as a barrier between the realm of the living and the dead without an invitation, they’d wrap around him in a tight grip. Nor could he step foot inside the river that separated his domain and the Valley of Remembrances, or else risk being dragged down into the water’s infinite depths by lost souls. It made sense that the vampiros he helped create would be weakened by the same elements, ones as harmless as wood and blessed water.

Lalo hoped that tale was true. Otherwise, he would be woefully helpless once he marched inside the building where he believed his parents’ killer resided. Entering some place in search of a predator with no true plan of what to do after was a bad idea, but he needed to see the monster with his own eyes. Lalo needed to be sure she was the one he saw so clearly in his nightmares. Only then would he know for certain he hadn’t gone mad like everyone in town seemed to believe.

In Lalo’s nineteen years alive, he’d only been to a handful of balls. They were awkward and stuffy and every mother with an eligible daughter kept thrusting them at him as if he were a prince. He didn’t like dancing, and he wasn’t particularly fond of small talk, which made for an uncomfortable time. Lalo was happy to be alone, but Fernanda was like their parents. His younger sister enjoyed fun. Unfortunately, his going around Los Campos warning people about a woman with fangs and glowing eyes had put a damper on her invitations to events in the last year.

He chewed on his bottom lip as his eyes scoured over the building again. He would get revenge for Fernanda. And selfishly, Lalo wanted to prove everyone who laughed in his face wrong.

He stepped forward, hands shaking. According to the young man he overheard in the public library, the trick to obtaining entry into the secret cantina was to knock once, pause for four seconds, then knock three times in quick succession. He grabbed the knocker and followed the instructions. His heart pounded as he waited. And waited. And waited.

Just when he thought he should try again, he heard the locks disengage. The door opened a crack. Thumping guitarróns and blaring trumpets poured out of the shadows but nothing more.

“Hello?” Lalo said, peering into the darkness. No one was there.

His brow furrowed, but he stepped through the threshold with caution. He slipped inside the doorway and jumped when the thick wood slammed shut behind him.

“Not the warmest of welcomes, I see,” he whispered. Clearly, un vampiro didn’t worry much over social norms like etiquette.

Slowly, he made his way down a dank corridor, following the music and laughter. He didn’t dare brush against the walls because his jacket had only just come back from the cleaners and who knew what sort of messes monsters left behind. A few people littered the hallway, their arms wrapped around each other, their voices hushed as they whispered sweet nothings into their partner’s ear.

He eased around them and entered a large room with wine-colored walls and an immense bar at the rear. It was a wonder he could see anything with so little candlelight and so much tobacco smoke in the air. His coat was doomed to go back to the cleaners now. The banda played a riotous tune, and people writhed about. Lalo’s eyes snapped back and forth. He prayed to whatever gods still listened that he didn’t see anyone he knew. Though, he supposed they would have to explain their appearance in such a scandalous place too.

Lalo jolted. His breath caught in his throat. There, standing not twenty paces away from him, was the woman who terrorized his every nightmare and waking moment. Her long red hair was pulled into a chignon. A lacy gown stuck to her skin, showing off every sharp angle of her. And those eyes, her terrifying, horrible eyes were as red as before. He found himself frozen in place. He didn’t even think he was breathing. She was real.

The woman slipped away, slithering toward a darkened corner. Lalo forced his legs to follow.

“Discúlpeme, por favor,” he said as he bumped into a dancing couple.

“Excuse me,” he offered as he attempted to pass a woman in a gown that had gone out of fashion long ago.

She turned to him, and Lalo had to hold in his gasp. Her pupils glowed in the low light like a cat’s. But not with the golds or blues one might be accustomed to. This woman’s eyes shone blood-red just like the killer he sought.

His already thundering heart tripled in speed.

Vampiro.

Lalo stumbled back, but the woman reached out and snatched him by the buttons of his shirt. She jerked his body toward hers.

“Your pulse is loud and strong, mi amor,” she purred. One of her fingers slid up his neck. Lalo’s innards coiled in disgust. “Are you here with someone?” she asked. “Are you claimed by one of my siblings?”

Siblings? There were more than two vampiros here?!

There hadn’t been many police reports about attacks like his parents’ that he could find. His research on humans who’d been murdered by people drinking their blood had brought him to findings from countries far from Abundancia and a single case from some tiny pueblo to the north two hundred years ago. Lalo had assumed his parents’ killer was the only beast in the city of Los Campos. And now, here he was, learning he’d walked into some sort of nest of them.

He needed to know more. He needed to understand what he was up against.

“I am here for the woman with red hair,” he said.

The vampiro clutching him sniffed. “I do not smell Maricela on you.”

She had a name. The beast who shattered his life had a name. For some reason, that made things worse. It made his nightmares feel real.

“I am going to her now,” he said.

The woman hissed and released him. “You’ll find Mother in her private room.”

Mother?

Maricela was this creature’s maker then.

Leave, the intelligent part of his brain urged. Get away from this snake pit before it’s too late. And yet, his feet carried him on.

He had no clue where Maricela’s private room was, but he didn’t dare ask. He stumbled through the throng and winced when he noticed several other vampiros within the cantina. The eyes were a telltale sign, but there were other things too. They had an almost feline way of carrying themselves.

Two vampiros wearing matching suits danced with the guests. Another one was sitting at the bar, pretending to drink bourbon as the humans he was with knocked back shots with liquid the color of blood. Another vampiro was nuzzled up to a person’s neck.

Horror roiled through Lalo. He understood why this place was called The Den. It was quite literally a lair for these beasts to feed upon innocent souls.

This was a job for officials, for the police, for the militia. Not one nineteen-year-old boy with a sensitive stomach. Alas, here he was, in the rear of the cantina, guided by resentment and curiosity.

He stepped into a hallway that smelled of spilled tequila. The music was still loud but grew muffled as the corridor cut to the right. Lalo stopped just before a door that was slightly ajar. Candles flickered from sconces on the papered walls.

Am I really going to do this? he asked himself.

What other choice did he have? Lalo hadn’t known a moment of peace since that dreadful night. He was constantly peering over his shoulder. He didn’t dare let his sister out of his sight if they had errands to run after sundown. Killing Maricela was the only way to end his suffering. He would not let another child become orphaned like him. He wanted to take down every vampiro in this cantina. Though, that sounded rather impossible, especially considering he’d never even been in a scuffle before. But if he had proof of at least one vampiro’s existence, he could go back to the authorities. They would have to come to the cantina and exterminate the rest of the foul beasts themselves.

He stuck his hand into the inner pocket of his coat. His fingers wrapped around the wood he had painstakingly sharpened, and he tugged it free. Time to end this now.

“Searching for someone?” a sultry voice queried from behind.

Lalo spun around.

His eyes widened.

Maricela stood before him. Her posture was perfect. Her demeanor was refined. No one would believe such a poised woman capable of the terrors Lalo had seen her inflict. That was the way of un vampiro, he’d discovered. They disarmed their victims with false humanity. But there was nothing human about the woman before him. She was a predator, hunting for hearts to devour like Tecuani.

“Pray tell.” She gestured toward the stake in Lalo’s hand. “What do you plan on doing with that toothpick in your grasp?”

Lalo raised the weapon in question. He could only pray she didn’t notice how much it quivered because of his shaking hand. “Do not come near me, fiend. This is willow root, and I know how to use it.”

He didn’t. Not in the slightest. The only semblance of a weapon he knew how to wield were the knives he used to slice through seasoned meat at the dinner table.

“What have I done to deserve such vitriol? To be called a fiend in my own home,” she asked, smiling as if this were an amusing game to be played.

“You took my parents from me. You ruined my life.”

“I’ve ruined many lives. That is how I stay so beautiful.” She batted her lashes. “I’ll offer you a bit of comfort, señor. If your parents looked anything like you, I’m certain they tasted divine.”

Her tongue slithered over her front teeth, stopping at the fangs that had elongated to dangerously sharp points. His insides quaked. Why in the stars did he think coming here was a good idea? That had perhaps been the problem. He wasn’t thinking and simply acted. He wasn’t typically impulsive. Gods, if he died tonight, his sister would reach into his grave and throttle him.

That could not happen. He wouldn’t allow Fernanda to live in this world with no family. With no one to care for her. She was only seventeen, and her prospects had stopped calling when he’d become the boy who cried vampiro.

Lalo lunged, thrusting his weapon toward Maricela’s heart. The vampiro simply swatted his hand, and the stake thumped to the floor.

Maricela glared at him, a dangerous growl emanating from her throat.

He spun, trying to flee, realizing he’d made a grave mistake, but something hit him, and his back slammed against the wall. Bits of dust and plaster smattered over his hair and fell into his mouth. He coughed, but it was cut off by Maricela’s palm, pressed into his chest. Her other hand shoved his head to the side, exposing his neck.

“No,” he managed. He tried his best to fight her off, but she was like a statue, hard and unshakable. Vampiros were strongest after they drank human blood. Maricela must have had a feast because her skin was like marble.

She opened her maw.

“No,” Lalo whispered. “No. No. No!”

Sharp fangs pierced into his flesh. The sudden shock of pain clogged the scream bubbling up his throat. Just as quickly as it came, the ache dissolved away, and Lalo couldn’t feel anything from his shoulders to his toes.

Saliva, his mind screamed. Her saliva is dulling your senses.

Her teeth sank deeper, and his eyes rolled back.

Images of his life flashed before him. Holding his mother’s hand as a boy. Clapping when his baby sister took her first steps. The joy of finding a good book. The heartache of being left to his own devices as his parents gallivanted about the city, bouncing to whichever gala or ball or exhibit was hosted by the most popular socialite that week. He saw the night they died. Saw Maricela’s jaw clamping down upon his father’s throat.

Lalo watched the memories of him trying to tell the officials what he had witnessed. They laughed him off. Told him to stay away from horror novels. He saw himself in the library day and night, searching for clues about what he had seen. Then he saw himself moments ago, speaking to the woman with the out-of-fashion gown. He heard his own thoughts, contemplating how he’d slay the vampiros within the cantina.

Maricela tore away from him. Her irises blazed molten red. “You came here to kill my children. You thought you’d harm my beloveds?”

“You took my family first!” he cried. “You are draining my life force as we speak! Shouldn’t I be the one who’s angry?”

She sneered. “You will pay for your insolence, Eduardo Villalobos.”

Lalo’s eyes widened. “How do you know my name?”

“Blood reveals all.” She leaned forward, her lips brushing against his ear. “Now that I have tasted you, I know everything. I have seen your innermost thoughts. I know your dreams and nightmares. I could go on, but I won’t because punishment awaits you. Perhaps I should start with that pretty sister of yours.”

No. He had to get away. He had to get back to Fernanda. “If you let me go,” he wheezed, “I’ll never return. I promise.”

A rumbling laugh emanated from Maricela. “You know too much. You have seen my home. My children. There must be consequences to your actions. You are a smart boy, you understand this, no?”

“Please . . . I cannot die.”

She brushed a nail down his cheek. “You will die, Lalo. But fear not, your death won’t come tonight. I want you to suffer first. I want you to feel what I feel.”

“What? No . . . please . . .”

“We can be fiends together.” She gripped him by the hair and dragged his body into the darkness. He screamed for help; he begged for mercy. Instead, he found agony.

Lalo stumbled down the cobblestone walkway in the middle of the night. Half tripping, half running home. He dug his trembling hand into his pocket, fumbling through lint and who-knew-what before he wrapped his blood-soaked fingers around the key. He tried to disengage the lock but winced.

Everything was so excruciatingly loud.

The key scraping against the metal mechanisms within the deadbolt. The babe crying five doors down. The damn moth bumping against the lantern glass above his head. Every sound burrowed into his skull and grated against his brain.

A rodent scuttled across the road to his right, and Lalo nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Shit,” he whispered.

He rarely cursed, but he figured he was owed this vice after everything he’d just been through.

Closing his eyes, he forced his breathing to calm, his mind to stop racing. He needed to focus on one simple task: opening the door.

When he heard a soft click, he let loose a sigh. The familiar scents of his past and present kissed his senses. The tallow polishes his father used on his boots. The citrus soaps his sister loved but only because their mother loved them first. Lalo breathed in deep. He never thought he’d see home again.

He glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the empty road, before shutting the door behind him. He rested his head on the cool wood. His sticky fingers splayed over the frame etched with his and Fernanda’s height measurements from a childhood that no longer seemed real. The room was blessedly dark, concealing his sins within the shadows.

“Get out of my house!” a familiar voice screamed.

Lalo had but a second to duck before a fire poker smashed into the wooden frame where his head had just been.

“Get out of my house, thief!” his sister shrieked, readying to clobber him.

“It’s me!” Lalo yelled. “Fernanda, it’s me!”

“Lalo?” She lowered her arms but kept a tight hold on the fire poker.

“Yes!” he replied.

Though there wasn’t a single candle lit, Lalo could see his sister clearly. Her almond-shaped eyes, green like their mother’s. Her small nose and angular face, similar to their father’s. She and Lalo shared the same warm brown skin and slender builds but that was where their resemblances ended. She was always laughing and talking to anyone who passed by. He was rather moody and preferred the company of the characters in books over actual friends.

Surprise flickered over Fernanda’s features. Then came relief. And next rage.

“Where have you been?” she asked, seething. “I haven’t heard a single word from you in three days! I searched everywhere. The library. The courthouse. The church. Father’s business. Nada. Where were you?”

Three days? Was that all? It had felt like a lifetime. Like three lifetimes.

“I have to tell you something, Fernanda, but promise to stay calm.”

“That statement alone has my heart rate rising.”

She wasn’t lying. He could hear her pulse thumping against her neck. Could smell her blood rushing through her veins. His mouth watered.

“Oh gods,” he said, feeling the bile climb up his throat. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he whispered.

“What, Lalo? What is happening? Tell me now, or I will thump you with this poker.” She shook the metal bar in her hand for proof.

He didn’t doubt she would. She once threw a boot at him when he didn’t tell her who asked about her in the market fast enough.

“We must leave,” he said. “Right now.”

Her features twisted with confusion. “What?”

“I need you to pack whatever you can. Take our most valuable items. I’ll send a note to Father’s advisors that we are going on sabbatical, and I’ll figure everything else out later. But right now, we must get out of Los Campos.”

“Lalo, what happened? What did you do?”

His mouth went dry. “I went to the cantina I told you about,” he admitted.

Fernanda’s jaw dropped. “You cannot be serious.”

“I wish I wasn’t.” Saints, what he wouldn’t do to take the last few days back.

“Why are you so insistent on torturing yourself? Whoever or whatever killed Mother and Father is gone.”

“She was there,” he whispered. “I saw her with my own eyes. She was exactly the beast I remember. They are real, Fernanda. Fucking vampiros are real. And we need to get out of the city. Now.”

Even though they were draped in darkness, Lalo could see his sister’s face go pale. “Can’t we go to the authorities? Perhaps the militia? Surely there is someone who will help us.”

“There is no one who will save us now. Do you remember how I told you they need human life to survive? I was right. But it isn’t solely the blood. It’s the existence within it. The memories. The joy. The pain. The life. All of it. That monster bit me. She saw me through my blood. Every thought I’ve ever had. Every book and journal I’ve read. She knows everything. She saw my research. Our family. This house. She drank and drank, and I could do nothing to stop her until I was no more.”

“What does that even mean?” Fernanda’s voice was shrill.

“I am dead!” he yelled. “I died, Fernanda. That miserable beast killed me!”

“You aren’t making any sense. You are alive, Lalo. I’m speaking with you right now.”

“I have been turned, Fernanda. I’m a monster.”

She shook her head. “That cannot be true. You seem fine.”

Fernanda snatched up a matchbox from a nearby table.

“Don’t!” he shouted. He couldn’t let her see him like this.

His sister raised her brow and did as she wanted, like she always did. She struck the match and lit the candlewick. A small flame flickered to life. Lalo hissed at the sudden brightness and tucked his face behind his arm.

His sister gasped, and his heart sank.

“Your hands,” she whispered. “Your clothes.”

Lalo turned away from her and examined his arms. The sleeves of his coat were torn to shreds. And his palms were still stained with blood and the mysterious inky gore that spilled from vampiros’ veins.

“Whose blood is that?” Fernanda asked.

Hot tears filled his eyes. “Everyone’s.”

The horror of what had transpired filled his mind.

He woke with a start. He didn’t know how or why or when he’d gotten there, but he was lying on an icy floor. His throat burned with this frantic sort of thirst. The desperation was like nothing he’d experienced before. He scrambled to his feet and ran up the stairs, only to be met by a barred door.

He wrapped his fingers around the metal bars and shook with his entire might.

“Help!” he had screamed.

A seductive laugh bounced off the stone walls and crashed into his skull. He grimaced at the sudden ringing in his ears.

“Can’t you feel it?” Maricela asked. She stepped out of the shadows, her lean body draped in an emerald gown. “I still remember when I was turned by my maker.” She breathed in deeply, as if the memory smelled of jasmine. “I was mad with need. My throat was on fire.”

That was exactly how he felt. Like if he didn’t douse himself with water, he would burst into flames.

She half grinned. “The only thing to quench that thirst was another’s life.”

He gripped his neck. “What have you done to me?”

“You should already know. You are an expert on my kind, are you not?”

Lalo’s mind reeled. Maricela had bitten him. She’d drained the lifeblood right out of him and— His eyes bulged. He was going to be sick. “You forced me to drink your blood!”

But when he swallowed her blood, he saw bits and pieces of her memories, not her entire life like she had with him. He caught only small glimpses of her past. A mountain with jagged, spinelike ridges. A valley tucked away from the rest of the world. He saw other memories too. Thousands of them. Other people’s memories. Her victims, he realized. He was seeing her victims’ lives. When un vampiro drank, they took their life force and time. Every ounce devoured counted for days stolen off their life. It seemed the more vibrant the life, the faster it was taken.

She had turned him into the very thing he wanted to destroy.

“I will never drink a human’s blood,” he hissed.

“And I don’t intend on letting you. Though, I suspect by the third day of being un sediento, you will be begging me to let you feed.” The tip of Maricela’s tongue toyed with one of her incisors. “I told you I wanted to see you suffer. And suffer you shall. Un vampiro who does not devour life suffers a fate worse than death.”

His brows pinched.

“If we do not consume, our own bodies begin to turn on us. Your organs will devour you from the inside out. You will become a monster worse than I. I can assure you of that.” She winked and turned her back to him.

“Where are you going?” he bellowed.

As she started to walk away, she said, “I have business to attend to. I’ll come back in a few days just to listen to your screams.”

She had been right. After the third day locked in the cantina’s cellar, the thirst had become too great a burden for Lalo to bear. His veins, his intestines, his damn eye sockets felt as if they’d explode if he didn’t consume life right then. And his screams continued to go unanswered. Everything was a blur after he gave in to his thirst. All he remembered was tearing the bars from the wall and sinking his teeth into the first body he saw.

Lalo gazed down at his bloodstained hands. “Maricela turned me. She made me un vampiro just to see me in pain. I couldn’t stand the agony. I broke free, and I killed everyone in my path. Nothing could stop me.”

Fernanda’s eyes widened. “Holy shit.”

“We have to leave,” he said, starting for his room. “We’ve got to get away before Maricela returns and sees what I did to her children.”

His pace quickened, but Fernanda didn’t budge.

“Holy shit,” she whispered.

Lalo slowed in the middle of the hall. “Come on, Fernanda. Hurry.”

She shook her head slowly in disbelief. “Holy shit.”

“Fernanda!”

Her gaze snapped to his and she gasped. “Your eyes are glowing in the light.”

“Yes, I know. I’m a godsdamned vampiro, remember?”

She blinked. “And he cusses now, too! What has become of my poor, perfectly boring brother?”

“Now’s not the time for jests. Let’s go.” He started forward but halted when his sister asked, “Can you fly?”

“What? No. Have you not listened to me talk about my research once during this entire year?”

She shuffled forward, the fire poker still in her grasp. “What about shape-shifting? I feel like I remember you saying something about that. Can you turn yourself into a bear or something?”

Lalo threw up his arms. “It’s like you purposefully get the facts wrong.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tecuani is the god of souls. He can be summoned to the Land of the Living and revive the deceased but at a great cost. I found the journals of a father in the southern country of Santemala who begged Tecuani to bring his young daughter back from the dead.”

“That’s so sad,” Fernanda said.

“Indeed.” But that wasn’t the point his sister should be focusing on. “The girl rose to life, but she was different. She took on the traits of Tecuani. He is jaguar-like in every way. He is fast and strong and has exceptional hearing and sight during the night. The man’s little girl no longer wished to play with toys but to hunt for human hearts. She wanted blood, specifically her father’s blood because it was he who called forth Tecuani.” Lalo turned to his sister. “Note that there was no mention of a bear in that explanation. I don’t even know where you came up with such a thing.”

A single brown brow raised on Fernanda’s face. “You are telling me you are now like a jaguar?”

“Yes. To an extent. One that needs human blood to survive.”

“So . . .” She crossed her arms. “No flying.”

Lalo scoffed and stomped away.

“But where will we go?” his sister called after him. “We can run from that vampiress all we want, but what about you, Lalo? I might not listen much, but I do remember you saying when un vampiro feeds, it steals time from their victim. I know you. I know you’d never wish to do something like that.”

She was right. He refused to steal another person’s life.

So what was there to do? His eyes flicked to the small desk tucked away in the dining room. A year’s worth of research on vampiros lay stacked inside the drawers.

There was one place he could go for help. One place that maybe, just maybe, might offer him a way to turn himself back. But it was a long shot.

“I found one case of vampiros in our country. It is from some two hundred years ago and there isn’t much to go on, but traveling there to get more information is the best plan I have.” He paced across the room and pulled open a drawer. Lalo riffled through parchment and articles he had copied word for word from the Los Campos library catacombs. Stealing the whole book would have been easier, but he had standards of decorum to uphold. A library was a sacred place, after all.

“There,” he said, pointing at an old map.

Fernanda grabbed the candle and held it toward the parchment. She peered down. Her brow furrowed.

“Del Oro,” she read out loud. “Where in the hells is that?”

“By my best calculations, it’s three or four weeks’ ride to the north.”

Fernanda balked. “But you said she’s seen your thoughts. Won’t she know you might try and go there?”

A good point. “I’ll tell Father’s solicitor we are headed east for a long while. Surely word will get around town with us leaving so abruptly. And if Maricela knows my mind in the slightest, she’ll assume I’d never be foolish enough to actually risk such an arduous journey north for something that might not even work.”

“True. And you are, or were, quite averse to danger.”

Something crashed just outside their window. Fernanda clamped a hand over her mouth to seal in her scream. They stood in stunned silence. Waiting. But Lalo could hear nothing over his sister’s thundering heart. And he hated it. He hated himself for causing her even more distress. He’d been the one to hold Fernanda as she screamed for their parents. He had been the one to wipe her tears and braid her hair while she finished her final days of school. Lalo made a promise to himself that she’d never lose him.

And she wouldn’t.

Nor would he let anything happen to her. He’d find a way to remedy this. To keep her safe.

He grabbed the map, the many notes he had taken since their parents’ murders and started stuffing them into his father’s old satchel.

“Quickly, pack only what you can fit in one trunk,” he ordered.

She nodded and turned for her room.

“Don’t forget Mother’s jewelry,” he added. “And Father’s pipe. We will have to barter them to pay for a coach on such short notice.”

Fernanda stopped and glanced over her shoulder.

“What exactly is in Del Oro?” she asked.

Lalo sighed. “My only hope.”

A Cruel Thirst

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Love, Angela Montoya | Q&A with the Author of A Cruel Thirst

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