MacRieve could never be satisfied without sex. Hell, she could never be. The last ten days had turned into bout after bout of sensual torment -
She heard something moving on the decks and tensed, her ears twitching. Seconds later, she let out a breath. Just Schecter, activating his lure. Every time he hauled it out of the water, her ears registered the frequencies anew. Noise polluter.
Though Lucia didn't know where Charlie or Damiãno was, she could hear Rossiter pacing as usual. And Izabel was with the captain in his cabin, discussing something with him in a low voice.
Lucia sighed. Those two had it so easy as a couple, with just two minor barriers between them: Izabel's twin brother was in love with the same man, and Travis was still in love with his late wife.
If so little stood in the way of Lucia and MacRieve, she'd have reeled him in and never let him go.
Try a marriage to the devil, a chastity-based power, and potentially the end of the world....
Once Garreth reached the stern of the Barão, he drew a breath and dove beneath the ship. Barely able to see in the muddy water, he felt his way around until he could locate the propeller shaft.
After bending the metal out of shape, he surfaced for another breath. Just before he returned to mangle the rudder, he hesitated.
Blood. He smelled it, coming from within the Barão.
Ignore it, get the job done, and get back. But why was it so quiet inside? He didn't hear a single passenger. Not a soul was moving about.
And he still scented vampire.
His Lykae's curiosity got the best of him, and he leapt to the gangway, soundlessly landing.
Again he listened, hearing nothing but ship sounds, the eerie kind one hears only in the dead of night - the anchor chain scraping the windlass, wood settling, ropes tightening as a breeze picked up.
Dripping water, he stole into the main salon. The room was unsettling to Garreth, reminding him of a Victorian-era funeral parlor, overly gilded but somber.
He'd known the ship was a refurbished rubber boom trawler - the vessel's very name meant the rubber baron - but he hadn't suspected the Barão would be a time capsule from the rubber boom days.
And some of those days had been dark indeed.
As he moved farther within, he spotted a pair of reading glasses crushed on the plush floor rug. Atop a serving table, afternoon tea had been set out some time ago - now the cakes were crusted, the cream spoiled. When he spied a teacup with lipstick on the rim and a plate of half-eaten cake beside it, the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
Something had gotten these passengers - unexpectedly.
And a trail of crimson spatter led out of the room in the direction he'd detected the vampire's scent. Garreth followed the blood down a dimly-lit and narrow companionway, past one empty cabin after another. Wood creaked behind him, and he twisted around. Just the ship settling once more.
The trail ended at the door of the last cabin. Locked. Tensing for a fight, Garreth broke the polished brass knob. Inside, a coffin lay. An eerily simple casket - wood, no varnish or sets of pallbearer handles. Of course, the vampire wouldn't likely be carted around in it.
Garreth crouched beside the coffin. With fangs bared and flared claws raised to strike, he tore open the lid.
Empty.
But then another scent impression teased Garreth. He rose, exiting the vampire's room, tracking it farther into the boat until he stood before the freezer. Drawing a breath, knowing what he'd find, he opened the door.
All the passengers were inside. Dead. Their bodies had been butchered into pieces and stuffed within.
Among the limbs, he spied Captain Malaquí's glaring tattooed arm. When Garreth had seen the man just this afternoon, had Malaquí already known the others were dead? And that his time was nigh...?
The vampire was missing, with a trail of blood leading to - or from - his cabin, and all the people aboard had perished. Should be easy to deduce what had happened. Yet these people had been hacked at.
What weapon could have done this? A sword, an ax?
His eyes narrowed. Charlie had had a machete this morning. I knew something was off....
"Lousha!" Garreth twisted around, sprinting for the water.
"What the hell is MacRieve doing?" Through the pounding rain, Lucia had spotted him boarding the Barão! "Why would he go..." She trailed off.
The Contessa had just seemed to ripple beneath her feet before stilling once more. "That was weird." She'd no sooner spoken than the entire vessel shuddered, moving sideways, straining against the anchors. Wood groaned from the pressure. She hunched down, her eyes darting.
From his cabin, Travis barked, "What the hell was - "
Like a shot, the Contessa reared up, briefly tilting to the side, sending Lucia skidding to the opposite side of the deck. As she scrabbled for purchase, her mind tried to grasp what could do this - what would be big enough to do this.
And how much more could the Contessa take?
When the boat was hit again, rising up off its hull before settling, Schecter shrieked from the port side of the boat.
Lucia's eyes narrowed as a suspicion arose, and she clambered around the pitching decks toward him. Once she'd reached the side, her jaw slackened at the scene.
Schecter. Hanging on for his life to a splintering railing. Directly beneath his dangling body, an immense caiman peered up, about to strike.
Her lips parted around a shocked breath. The creature was colossal, with red eyes the size of basketballs. And it wasn't alone. The water all around the boat churned with eddies.
MacRieve had told her that there were in fact giant caimans - but that they lived in Rio Labyrinto, not anywhere else!
Wait... the ship was only a few hours from there. Dear gods, was Schecter's lure actually working, drawing them here from the hidden tributary?
Lucia readied her bow, stringing two arrows. The creature's hide would be plated thick, so she aimed for the red eyes - big enough targets.
When she nailed the caiman in both sockets, it thrashed twice, sending up copious waves of water and mud that splattered the side of the boat. Then it disappeared.
Lucia strapped her bow across her body, then dove across the deck for Schecter, snagging his wrist. "What have you done?" she demanded. "What is this?"
He replied in hysterical gibberish - so she feinted like she was dropping him. "What was that, Schecter?"
"Lure. Worked!"
"Where is it?" She couldn't hear the contraption, which meant it was still underwater.
"I don't know! Got jostled, caught in the anchor line," he answered, looking so petrified that she believed him.
She'd just swung him back on solid footing when Travis and Izabel stumbled out onto the deck.