Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

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 aserving 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 glaringtattooed 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 hullbefore settling, Schecter shrieked from the port side of the