If it weren't for the low, steady music thrumming from inside the dimly lit restaurant, Miguel would have thought The Crimson Goat was closed for the evening.
"This is the place everyone's been going on about?" Isabella curled her lip over her fangs in a sneer. "As if humans know anything about good food."
These at least knew something about how to make chupacabras comfortable. The familiar sound of slurping welcomed them inside as chupacabras dined on San Antonio's finest— and so far only— sanguine cuisine.
"Welcome to The Crimson Goat!" The hostess's voice dripped with fake cheerfulness as she craned her neck to look Isabella in the eye. "Do you have a reservation?"
"It should be under Isabella of Saguaro Pack." Miguel offered the hostess what was supposed to be a smile but, judging from the way she cringed, he still needed practice. Most of Saguaro Pack didn't interact with humans much, and Miguel saw them less than most since he was usually busy caring for hatchlings.
"Is the third member of your party here?"
Miguel and Isabella sniffed the air and glanced around the restaurant, but there was no sign of Creosote Pack's leader among the sea of scaly bodies. "Not yet," Miguel said.
"She shouldn't be long, though." Isabella's claws twitched by her side. "We have much to discuss."
Since a member of Saguaro Pack would soon leave to live with her mate, tradition dictated that Creosote Pack's leader must give Isabella a gift in exchange for the packmate she was about to lose. She'd invited Isabella and a handful of her most trusted packmates to dine with her on neutral ground, promising to present them with her offering at the end of the meal.
"Alrighty then. I'll make sure to keep an eye out for her, but let's go ahead and get you to your table."
The hostess led them to a secluded corner of the restaurant, far from the contented slurping of the other diners. "Your waiter will be with you shortly. In the meantime, please enjoy your complimentary mice."
Miguel eased himself into his chair with a wince as the hostess scampered away.
"Were the hatchlings roughhousing with you again?" Isabella bent to inspect his bad leg, left weak and slightly twisted by a coyote attack when he'd been just a hatchling himself.
"I was trying to show them how to do a proper hunter's crouch, and I guess I moved my leg wrong. Stars forbid I even look at it the wrong way, or I'll be feeling it for a week."
"I can put you on nesting duty if you need to rest it."
Miguel shook his head. His sister always tried to look out for him. While she was always the first to kill and the last to feed, he had his pick of whatever tickled his teeth that day. Perhaps tonight he could finally get her to pamper herself for once.
"Don't worry about me," he said. "Have you figured out what you'd like to try?"
"Worrying is my job, hermanito. And if you think this dreck is appetizing, then I have a lot more to be concerned about." She gestured toward the cage full of frantically squeaking rodents in the center of the table. "I wouldn't feed these pests to a hatchling, yet humans seem to think we have no better taste than snakes."
"At least they're trying." Miguel shuddered at the memory of the tough, stringy slabs of meat they'd been forced to settle for the last time another pack leader had invited Isabella to dinner. It had taken him a week to scrape the last of the fibers from between his teeth. "They're live, even! Surely they can't be that bad."
A plump white mouse squirmed in his grip as he pinched its tail between his claws. Venom seeped from his fangs, pooling on his tongue until he finally popped the creature into his mouth. Blood tinted with the taste of sunflower seeds washed over his tongue as his venom set to work dissolving his prey, with his back teeth making quick work of its bones.
"Not bad," he said after swallowing the tiny mouthful. "It's a shame they aren't bigger, but they're actually pretty good."
"You can have mine." Isabella nudged the cage toward him.
By the time the waiter arrived, Miguel was halfway through the rodents. "Good evening. My name is Alejandro, and I'll be your waiter tonight. Can I start you off with some drinks, or perhaps a refill on your mice?"
"The last thing we need is more rodents," Isabella hissed, the spines on the back of her neck twitching in agitation. With her scar-studded scales and broad-shouldered, muscular build even more impressive than that of most females, it was a miracle she didn't scare the waiter off.
"Although they are delicious!" Miguel said, desperate to brighten the mood before the other humans took notice. It wouldn't do for Isabella to get them kicked out before Creosote Pack's leader showed up. "We need to make sure we save room for everything else."
Alejandro's smile graced the room like a glimpse at the crescent moon as he laughed. "I'm the same way when it comes to bread. Have you decided what you'd like to start with?"
"I'd like some real food," Isabella said as she squinted at the menu. "None of these meatballs or what have you. Abominations, all of it."
"She doesn't mean that," Miguel said as he ran a hand down his spines in embarrassment. Leave it to his sister to antagonize one of the few humans who was treating them like they weren't a breath away from hunting someone.
"It's alright, I'm sure it's really different from what you're used to. May I suggest the duck blood soup? It's one of our most popular appetizers."
"Sounds good to me." Miguel glanced questioningly at Isabella.
"We'll take two bowls," she said.
"Great!" Alejandro jotted down their appetizer orders. Stress strained the edges of his smile as he fiddled with his pen. "The leader of Creosote Pack just called to let us know she unfortunately won't be able to come tonight because she received a challenge, but she went ahead and ordered tonight's special for both of you. Would that be alright, or has something else caught your eye?"
"That will do," Isabella said. A low growl rumbled out of her as Alejandro left to deliver their order to the kitchen. "It is bad enough she could not come, but must she disrespect us by not letting us choose which pathetic excuses for food we must subject ourselves to?"
"I'm sure she meant well," Miguel said as he fidgeted in his seat. "She can't help being challenged."
"If she was a good leader, nobody would dare to challenge her."
Miguel hummed softly. Good leader or not, Saguaro Pack couldn't afford to reject her hospitality. "If you don't like what she chose for us, I'll hunt us something myself."
Isabella sighed. "I would never make you do that. I know you mean well, hermanito, but this place is just too... pretend. It's like when you run around in a coyote's skin and howl at the moon."
"The hatchlings love it," Miguel said with mock defensiveness. "And this is different. They're really trying. At least, I think they are. Why else would they bother opening a restaurant for us?"
"Money." Isabella sighed. "I swear, humans make such a fuss over it. You'd think it was their mate."
Their conversation halted as Alejandro brought them two steaming bowls of soup. Venom burned in Miguel's fangs as a familiar iron scent wafted to his nose.
But something different lingered underneath the blood's usual smell. Something fruity.
Miguel lifted the bowl to his lips and sipped. The broth ran down his throat, thick and sweet like the blood of a calf that had fed only on its mother's milk. He let out a soft thrum of pleasure before letting his venom drip onto the chunks of fruit floating in the soup. One by one they dissolved until Miguel downed the whole lot in one tremendous gulp.
"That was delicious!" It took all of Miguel's willpower not to lick the bowl.
"I'm glad you like it," Alejandro said. "Mr. Kaminski's grandmother brought the recipe with her when she left Poland. Well, not this recipe exactly, but something like it. We use fewer fruits so the blood comes through more strongly."
"You're still using too many if you ask me." Isabella prodded one of hers with the tip of a claw, curling her lip as a burst of juice squirted her face.
"It's definitely not for everyone," Alejandro admitted. "Can I get you something else? Some steak tartare, maybe?"
"No, I'd better save my appetite for the main course. Something tells me I'm going to need it if I want to be able to swallow."
"You might be surprised," Alejandro said, his smile not wavering for even a moment. "Still, feel free to give me a wave if you change your mind."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Isabella scrubbed her claw with her napkin the moment Alejandro left to tend to his other tables. "Humans are so pushy."
Miguel's claws scraped against the seat of his chair, adding scratch marks to the scarred wood. It would not do to speak too negatively of humans here, lest they overstay their welcome. But she was his sister— his pack leader no less— so all he said was, "Are you going to finish that?"
He finished the soup in silence, pausing only to listen to the other customers. Beneath the steady bass of the ambient music, the other chupacabras scattered throughout the restaurant chatted over their meals. Some thrummed with delight; others poked at their food with bemused chuckles, not quite understanding humans' strange culinary customs but enjoying the experience all the same.
Yet, despite the respite from hunting coyotes and other vermin, Isabella hadn't even tried to relax. Her spines stood at attention, quivering along the back of her neck as she watched the human staff. They watched her too, their tiny eyes darting from her to the other customers like mice stealing glances at hawks as they dreaded the clutch of a carnivore's claws.
It wasn't hard to see why. Even male chupacabras were larger than the average human, and their long, muscular limbs would make chasing and pinning one down an easy task. Females would have an even easier time besting them. What they lacked in speed they made up for with raw strength and bulk.
And yet humans were firmly in control. Despite their small, fragile bodies, all they needed to keep the chupacabras in line were sheer numbers and the ever-present threat of their guns.
As a potent scent emerged from the kitchen, it became clear humans held yet another power over chupacabras.
The shift in the customers' attitude was subtle at first. Occasional sniffs in the direction of the kitchen, conversations lowering in volume. Soon though, the change became more apparent. Excited whispers broke out, and those who had yet to receive their meals crammed mice into their mouths, desperate to sink their teeth into flesh that was a far more appropriate outlet for their venom than their napkins. Some were too slow, ducking their heads in embarrassment as the corrosive liquid sizzled through cloth.
Isabella perked up, craning her neck to look at the platter emerging from the kitchen. "Do you smell...?"
"Goat." Miguel's fangs burned with venom as he drank in the musky odor. He hadn't been lucky enough to eat such a delicacy in years. In the olden days, before Saguaro Pack had left Mexico, such a creature would have been reserved for a chupacabra's first true hunt, marking their transition from hatchling to adult. While that rite of passage had changed over the years to allow for a wider variety of potential prey, goats were still highly regarded.
"It's fresh." Isabella's nostrils flared as she strained to inhale as much of the scent as she could.
By the time Alejandro brought the platter over to their table, there wasn't a single dry mouth in the entire restaurant. Steam rose from the sausages in mouthwatering clouds as he placed it in the center of the table. "We always make sure to include a variety of meats in our nightly special," he said. "While I unfortunately can't get you more goat sausages since we have to limit them to make sure everyone gets to try some, I'd be happy to substitute any of the other kinds if you'd like."
"We'll stick with the variety," Miguel said, struggling to twitch his lips into a passable smile while still keeping his venom from dripping out. "Could you tell us what's what? It's a little hard to tell them apart." Especially since he could barely focus on anything but the goat smell.
"Of course!" Alejandro pointed to each of the sausages as he explained what each type tasted like. "The blood sausage is that thick, dark one. Chorizo is especially popular since it has quite a kick. Knacki is simple, but it has a nice bite to it. Then there's..."
"Oh for the stars' sake, I'm eating before it gets cold!" Isabella grabbed one of the goat sausages, long and covered in speckles of green. She sank her fangs into the casing, pouring venom into it and thrumming with pleasure as she sucked the dissolving meat into her mouth.
Her enjoyment was short-lived.
Contented thrumming morphed into a low, rumbling growl as she pulled her mouth away from the sausage and spat the half-dissolved contents onto the platter in a sizzling mush. "What did you do?" she snarled.
Miguel fought to keep his spines flat as hers rose to their full height, trembling with fury. "What else was in that sausage?" he asked hesitantly.
"Just cloves, allspice, and a couple other seasonings. Nothing too fancy." Alejandro's voice stayed calm and steady like a formidable oak standing firm in the face of a hurricane, but his hands trembled as he kept his gaze fixed on Isabella. "I'm sorry that wasn't to your liking. Would you like me to get you something else?"
"You'll taint it, just like your kind taints everything else it touches." Isabella bared fangs glistening with venom. "The other packs may tolerate you, but I have had enough!"
She lunged at him with her claws spread wide.