Page 14 of My Boyfriend Bites (A Moonstruck Mating #3)

Dante didn’t want to leave Selene, even though she had a point. Would the killer return seeking Selene if Dante stuck around?

Why would they have targeted her in the first place? The amount of rage seen in her suite made no sense. Unless they had something against lycans. Had they scented her and thus sought her out… for what? To kill? Feed? Why go through so much trouble? Vampires were all about easy prey. The situation made no sense, hence why he left but didn’t go far. He texted Renard.

Dante: What’s your status?

Renard: Bodies handled. Got a status on the power situation. It should be coming online shortly. Someone removed the fuses and the engineering crew are scrambling to replace them all.

Dante: Any sign of the captain?

Renard: No. Crew say it’s odd, as she’s usually very involved with operations.

Dante: See if you can find her.

Renard: Will do.

Dante: If you need me, I’ll be around the top-most deck trying to draw out the killer.

Because Selene might be capable, but this killer had proved elusive—and deadly.

As he skulked in the area, he tried to make sense of what he knew. Not much. The captain was either dead or incapacitated and obviously not the vamp they sought, seeing as how she couldn’t avoid sunlight when actively on duty. While the passengers had passed scrutiny, it remained possible they’d missed something, facial recognition software not being foolproof. Of the three crew members, he’d spoken to them all. He’d like to think he’d have known if any were like him. Which left hundreds of potentials and no time to sort through them all.

As he mulled, a commotion on a lower level caught his attention.

“Captain!” a man shouted. “About time you showed your face. What’s going on? I paid for a relaxing cruise, and this is bullshit. I expect a full ref?—”

The voice shut off abruptly, and screams erupted.

Dante stiffened, especially when he heard a woman shrilly cry, “Oh my god, she bit my husband.”

Upon hearing the thuds as someone climbed the stairs, Dante rounded a corner and pressed into the shadows.

He remained hidden as the person reached his level and paused. They continued upward. Heading for Selene.

Quietly, he crept after, catching a brief glimpse of white slacks before they disappeared as they reached the top deck.

As he ascended, he heard a woman say, “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

Selene sounded calm as she replied, “Ditto. Took you long enough.”

“I’ve been a tad busy,” the woman stated dryly.

Dante crouched low and peeked over the edge. Facing Selene, a woman in uniform, the white of it no longer pristine, given the splotch of blood on the sleeve and cuff of her pants.

“Who are you?” asked Selene.

“The captain, of course.”

“I doubt you’ll be one for long given what’s happening on board. Killing your passengers seems like bad business,” Selene stated, rising from her lounge chair.

“I can’t help it if I’m always hungry,” the woman replied with a laugh.

“This goes beyond hunger into gluttony. I have it on good authority that vampires don’t need to ingest that much blood.”

“You think I’m a vampire?” Amusement laced the words. “As if I would be something so trite. I am a soucouyant.”

“A what?” Selene blinked.

Dante knew the answer, and it chilled him to the marrow. He joined them on the top deck as he replied. “A soucouyant is similar to a vampire but of Caribbean origin. Some legends claim they are able to drain bodies and possess them to move around.”

The captain, currently inhabited by the soucouyant, whirled and offered a smile. “That is correct, vampire who is very far from his territory. You have no business here.”

“I disagree. It was brought to my attention that bad things have been happening on cruises. Your fault, I assume?”

“Oh yes. It was time to take matters into my mouth so to speak.” The creature, a form of magical leech, grinned.

“What matters?” Selene asked, drawing its attention.

“Stopping the invasion of my home,” spat the soucouyant. “Ignorant tourists desecrating my islands. Tromping with their clumsy feet on ancestral land and sand. Treating my people as nothing more than serfs.”

“Attacking innocent vacationers isn’t the answer,” Selene stated.

“Don’t be so sure. How many ships will it take being robbed—and losing passengers—before those companies change their routes and avoid my domain?”

“Doesn’t look like it’s working all that well seeing as how I’ve not heard of any routes being cancelled,” Selene observed. “If ceasing the cruises in this area was your end goal, why not just drain everyone on board and really send a message?”

“Because that would draw the wrong kind of attention,” the soucouyant hissed.

“What she means is if anyone suspected supernaturals were to blame, it would draw hunters and government agencies. Using pirates allows her to threaten the tourism industry without exposing herself,” Dante clarified.

“Correct,” the soucouyant sneered. “And it was so easy. I simply needed a few crew members to work with the pirates and coordinate the raids. Rob enough boats and the cruise lines will eventually change their itineraries.”

“And while theft is serious, it’s not a major crime,” Selene mused, “That’s why you made sure the pirates didn’t massacre the passengers because too many dead people would have drawn in depth scrutiny. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped you from murdering.”

“I needed to eat and a few missing people wasn’t considered a cause for concern.” The soucouyant shrugged. “People disappear from cruises all the time.”

“Let’s say you get the tourism to stop. What happens to the economy, to the people who depend on those jobs, those you claim to want to protect?” Dante pointed out.

“Who said anything about protection?” The soucouyant leered. “To me, they are just food. Food that could be serving me to save their lives.”

More pressing to Dante, “Why do you want Selene?” Because the targeting made no sense to him.

“Because she is lagahoo. A prize I must have.”

His already chilled blood turned icy. A lagahoo, another name for a shapeshifter. “I don’t think so,” Dante growled.

“And how will you stop me?” taunted the soucouyant.

“I’ll kill you.” Dante stepped closer, unsure of his next move. What he knew of the soucouyant made them a terrible foe.

“You mean destroy this body.” The creature looked down at it before smirking. “Go ahead. I will find another. And another. You see, I cannot be killed. When one vessel dies, I simply move to another. So please, take my head. Tear out my heart. It won’t matter. I will be reborn, again and again.”

Dante clenched his fists. Did she speak the truth? His recollection of the soucouyant legend claimed they shed their true skin and kept it in within a mortar. To destroy it one had to drench it in salt. In other words, they were fucked.

“I see you understand,” trilled the soucouyant. “Now please do kill me. I need to shed this skin if I’m to take the lagahoo as my next body.”

“You can’t have Selene,” he snapped. “I won’t let you.”

“You can’t stop me. Once my spirit is freed, I can take whomever I choose.”

“Then choose me.” He offered himself, and Selene sucked in a breath.

“No, you can’t do that.”

“Better me than you,” he muttered through a tight jaw.

“How chivalrous of you. If I had a heart that beat, it might have softened. Tell you what, I’ll possess you first, just so I can have the pleasure of desecrating your female. And then, I will discard your male form to take her.”

“Like fuck,” Dante declared, even as he saw no way out.

“You can’t stop me. No one can.” And with that, the possessed captain charged at Dante, forcing him to protect himself.

For every swipe of her hand, tipped in nails torn jagged, he blocked and punched back, landing satisfying meaty smacks that did nothing to stop the soucouyant, who cackled. “Yes, hit me harder. Break this body. It has to die for me to choose another.”

The demand acted as a reminder that he didn’t dare snap her neck. Or throw her off the side. Or do any of the things he’d usually attempt with the enemy.

All he could do was defend until something bad happened that he couldn’t prevent.

The monster used magic.

With a whispered word, and a gob of spit that hit him in the chest, suddenly Dante couldn’t move.

Sorcery, and it worked on vampires.

But worse…

The monster turned on Selene and cackled. “Hope you’re ready for a night you’ll never forget.”

The soucouyant turned to Dante and smacked her lips. “You’re a handsome specimen. Perhaps we’ll indulge in a bit of pillaging before returning to a preferred female form.”

“Leave him alone,” Selene shouted, the last treble turning into a growl as she burst into fur.

The wolf ran for the creature and leaped, the instinct to kill making her latch onto the neck of the soucouyant—who did nothing to stop the attack.

Crunch . The bones cracked, the head lolled, the eyes went unseeing with death.

For a moment, all was still. The magic holding him evaporated, and Dante lunged to throw himself in front of Selene as the captain’s body shuddered. The belly expanded, pushing at the fabric over the midsection before exploding and releasing a ball of fire.

The essence of the soucouyant emerged, and it weaved back and forth in the air, gleeful in its triumph.

Dante’s jaw went tight as he whispered, “I’m sorry we didn’t get more time.” Even more sorry he’d not been able to save them.

Selene whined by his side.

The fireball hovered, and Dante kept his eyes open. He wouldn’t avoid the moment of his death.

“Am I too late?” Renard suddenly appeared huffing and puffing, lugging the box from the captain’s cabin. He set it down and flipped open the lid.

The fireball spun and shot off sparks, the reason being what lay within the wooden coffer. Renard pulled forth a large mortar, a mound of wrinkled and dry skin lay in the cradle of it.

The soucouyant’s skin!

Dante barely dared to breathe as his assistant, as well versed in lore as him, pulled forth a bag of coarse salt. The fireball realized what he planned to do and shot off in Renard’s direction, only to halt and utter a hissing, sparking scream as his assistant began pouring the salt on the skin.

Dumped the whole bag atop it.

Smoke began to rise as it ate into the soucouyant’s discarded flesh, sizzling as it dissolved the magical skin. The fireball, in response, began to wobble in the air and shrink, getting tinier and tinier until, with a barely audible poof , it extinguished.

The mortar, full of stinking ash, smoked and smelled absolutely horrible. A gust of wind blew some of it into Renard’s face, and he coughed and choked.

“Fucking foul shit,” his assistant spat.

To which Dante replied, “You are going to get the biggest bonus in the history of bonuses, my friend.”

Because Renard had saved the day.