MERMADMEN (The Mermen Trilogy #2) (7 page)

“I’m close to getting everyone what they want: freedom and their mates returned,” Roen said. “Why would Shane want to risk losing that?” It was merely a question of time before Roen had the proper modern resources in place to keep anyone and everyone off the island.

“Not everyone wants change, Roen. Especially the island. It makes her nervous.”

Well, too damned bad.
Roen would do everything in his power to ensure she wasn’t vulnerable to outsiders, but this chaos had to end. Besides, sooner or later, someone would discover this place. With technology and human population growth, the world grew smaller by the second. For God’s sake, it was a damned miracle that an ocean freighter hadn’t rammed right into them. Thousands of ships passed within two miles of their shores every damned year. Roen had no doubt in his mind that he’d get the island to come around. First, he needed to prove to her how his way would be better in the long run.

“And you?” Roen asked. “How do you feel about change?”

Naylor grinned. “No matter what you do, I will never leave her. She is my home. And may I remind you, Roen, that none of us will ever truly be free. She’s as much a part of us as we are of her.”

Being connected to something didn’t mean it had to be everything. The connection simply needed to be honored and understood for what it truly was. What they had on this island wasn’t right.

And I’m going to change that. And Shane just made a big mistake dragging my mate into this.

The sound of a loud metal bell rang out across the island, summoning everyone for the evening’s big event. It was time.

~ ~ ~

With a heavy sigh, Naylor watched Roen disappear out the front door. He admired the young man of only thirty-four years for his determination and loyalty to the people. Nevertheless, this island was no place for a merman with a big heart. Because despite the island’s name—El Corazón—she didn’t possess a heart. It was the one thing Naylor understood after living here for hundreds of years: the island always got what the island wanted.

One way or another
. Those who moved against her wishes got to see everything they loved taken away, piece by piece.
Never turn your back on that which the island asks of you.
It was the cardinal rule.

“Why did you remain silent, merman?”
the island hissed inside Naylor’s head.
“Why did you not tell him?”

“Because Roen was in no mood to listen and telling him now would only fuel his conviction.”

“Then let him fuel himself to the grave and everyone who chooses to follow him,”
she said.
“Roen made a vow to rule obediently if I spared his mate. He promised to close his heart to her and give it to me.”

It had been a mistake—her mistake—calling Roen to the island, using his mate as the carrot to get him to dethrone his own brother. But the island couldn’t help herself. She had believed Roen’s strength would make her stronger, too. However, she quickly realized there was such a thing as too strong. She couldn’t control him like she’d been able to with the others. That hadn’t kept her from trying, though, and tonight would be her last attempt to rein him in. Roen either buckled or Shane would step in. Liv was merely brought in as a test for Roen, a bone to fight over.

“There is still a chance Roen’ll keep his word. And we both know how happy that would make you.”

“Yes, but if Roen so much as lifts a finger toward that landlover bitch, I will make him watch while I kill everything he loves—his mate, his brother, the men, and perhaps I’ll take out some of those vile landlovers, too.”

This was what Naylor had been afraid of. The island’s sense of justice and revenge was one without regard for the consequences. Sometimes protecting her meant protecting her from herself, too. “I will personally see to it that the landlover female is dealt with. But please, my queen, I beg you to let the men live.”

“No one, except for the elders and Shane, will be spared if Roen fails to keep his vow. And there will be no limit to the suffering I will bring.”

“But my queen—”

“No! Weakness and disobedience are like a cancer that must be eradicated before it spreads. I will tolerate none of it. Do you hear me, merman?”

Naylor nodded and wrung his tired hands. “Understood, my queen.” In the meantime, he would gather the other elders and begin discussing how to keep their people from being wiped from existence.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Wait. Where are you taking me?” Liv stopped cold on the narrow dark path that cut through the pitch-black forest filled with thorny bushes. “This isn’t the way to the great hall.”

The great hall, where they’d taken her last time, was a giant cavern smack in the middle of the island, inside a mountain resembling a dormant volcano. Right now, it felt like they were heading in another direction.

Jason, who’d been taking the lead, stopped and turned. “That’s because we’re not going to the great hall. We’re going to the lagoon.”

“Why?” Frankly, Liv wasn’t aware they even had a lagoon. Then again, this entire place was full of surprises. The bathroom in that cottage, for example, had a sauna and a double-headed shower with the most incredible water pressure ever, and she’d enjoyed every minute of it.
Forget last meals and last rites—a last shower is how this woman wants to go down.
She might not make it out of this Claiming Ceremony alive if things went south with Shane. Yes, it scared the hell out of her. So what? That wouldn’t change a damned thing.

Jason chuckled, and Liv wished she could see his face. Had that been an evil villain chuckle?

“I get,” she said, “that you guys have excellent night vision, but would it kill you to use a flashlight when ‘guests’ are around?” Her body already felt like a solid ball of nerves, and traipsing around in a dark chilly forest, getting stuck with thorns wasn’t helping.

Jason chuckled once more.

“Why the hell are you laughing?” she grumbled.

“I find your spunk amusing, that’s all. Sort of reminds me of a little piranha with sharp teeth—kinda cute.”

Naturally, a merman would find a piranha cute.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re almost there, and you don’t want to be late.”

Oh no. Late. How tragic.
She quickly imagined some horrible scene where women, with bite marks all over their bodies, writhed on the ground, screaming for mercy while they transformed into mermaids.

The dirt path sloped downward, and the front of Liv’s sandal caught on a small rock. She stumbled and caught herself on the trunk of a sticky pine tree.

“Great.” She pulled her sap-covered hands from the bark and wiped them down the sides of her white dress, which was really only a long strip of cloth wrapped around the body and tied behind the neck. It was what they’d made her wear the last time she’d been claimed when twenty men stepped up to fight to the death for her. Roen, of course, had decided to skip all that and challenge Lyle, his brother, for control of the island. Liv never got the story of how Lyle ended up in this place, though she knew it had to be complicated because up until that day, Roen believed his brother to be dead.

“Can you possibly walk any slower?” Jason chided.

“Yes. I can. And I don’t want to hear a…” She looked up to address Jason, losing her train of thought. Through the stand of trees up ahead, she caught a glimpse of giant floodlights shining down on an enormous swimming hole.

She marched forward, passing Jason, for a better look. “Sonofabitch,” she muttered under her breath, emerging from the forest onto a rocky ledge overlooking the pool of sparkling, deep green water. Four floodlights anchored to tall pine trees shined down on the water’s surface. A fifth light illuminated a narrow, ten-foot-high waterfall. “You have a lake.”

Jason stood beside her and shrugged. “Sure. Why wouldn’t we? Doesn’t everyone need drinking water?”

That wasn’t the point. When she’d been shipwrecked on this island, before Roen took over, she’d been dying of thirst. Yes, dying-dying—not a figure of speech. Poor Roen, who’d showed up and rescued her from Shane’s evil clutches, had to carry her in search of drinking water, but they’d never found any. Meanwhile, this damned lagoon had been ten minutes’ walking distance from them the entire time. Of course, she and Roen hadn’t been able to see it.
Thank you. I hope someone blows you up
, she thought to the island, who’d surely been responsible.

“It’s not a lake,” Jason said. “It’s technically a lagoon with a waterfall. The water comes off the mountain when the snow melts.” He pointed back toward the center of the island.

A loud sound filled the air, and that’s when Liv spotted Roen standing at the top of the waterfall across the lagoon. He held a conch in his hand and blew into it like a horn. His stomach muscles flexed, showing off his ten-pack, and his bicep bulged with sleek hard muscle.

Don’t look, Liv. Do not look at the hot merman wearing almost nothing.

“Crap. We’re late.” Jason grabbed her arm and pulled her down the trail that skirted the edge of the lagoon and led to a small beach, where the fifty other women waited, all wearing the same white dresses.

Still no Dana.
Liv wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or worried.

“Where’s my sister?” she asked, stumbling behind Jason and his large strides.

“She’s safe. Don’t worry,” he said curtly.

Why would I worry?
she thought.
This place is like fucking Disneyland.

Roen blew into his shell once again, and she forced herself to avert her gaze in order to keep her head clear—something impossible to do when she looked at that man.
Built for sinful, hard, hot sex, and I want to suck and lick and—

“God.” She winced. “Stop it.”

Jason led her to the pack of women, who stared, drooled, and oh-ah’d in Roen’s direction. “Wait. Isn’t that Roen Doran?” one of the women murmured.

“Ohmygod. Yes. That’s him,” said another, squealing.

The women started buzzing excitedly. “I hope he claims me,” said another. And then they all jumped in. “No, me. I want him.” The voices turned into a flurry of lustful, X-rated commentary, and it took every ounce of willpower Liv possessed to fight the urge to tell them to keep their slutty eyes off her man.

“Liv.” Jason gave her arm a squeeze. “The other women have been warned already. You have not. You are not to leave this beach under any circumstances until this event is over. If you must go to the bathroom, there’s the spot.” He pointed to the closest pine tree. “And if you break this rule, you will be fed to the maids. Do you understand?”

Liv nodded; meanwhile the women continued their happy, bachelorette-party banter. Roen was the main attraction.

“What is all this?” she asked.

“It is the Sinningitainnartok,” Jason replied and yanked off the cloth around his waist.

Liv gasped and stepped back. “What the hell, Jason?” She tried not to look at his penis, but it was right there. Thick and long and pink and…well, dangling there between his muscled thighs, sprouting from a patch of coarse dark blond hair.

The women began screaming with delight. “Oh, yeah! Take it off, merman!”

Liv wanted to scream, too, but with frustration. This was a goddamned nightmare of one bizarre event after another, and these fifty women were so doped up on “merman” they seriously believed this was fun.

Jason flashed a dimpled smile and dipped his head. “Thank you, ladies. Thank you.”

Liv pushed his shoulder. “Jason, what the hell is this?” she demanded, and the women began booing her. Liv ignored them and instead stared angrily at Jason.

“It’s the Sinningitainnartok,” he said. “It’s a word meaning ‘awake all night.’ It’s also a formal ceremony where we—”

Roen’s deep, authoritative voice filled the air, cutting him off.

Everyone instantly silenced.

“I would like to thank our guests,” Roen said, looking down at the crowd of smiling, excited women from his spot high up on the waterfall’s ledge, “for joining us in this time-honored tradition. Tonight, the men will compete in a variety of challenges to determine who will participate in the Claiming Ceremony tomorrow evening. Per our ancient and sacred laws, only those who complete the challenges may claim a woman.”

The women applauded.

Did this mean if Shane didn’t qualify, she’d be off the hook?

Liv started clapping, too.
Dear God, please don’t let him pass.

“Let the Sinningitainnartok begin.” Roen whipped off his suede and dove into the water head first with an elegant swan dive, eliciting a wave of groupie-like screams in praise for his penis from the ladies.

Liv snarled.

“That’s my cue,” said Jason and dove into the lagoon. That’s when Liv realized the rest of the men were already in the water, their heads popping up, taking deep breaths.

“Where’d they come from?” Liv asked, astonished.

A brunette with freckles on her nose and long bangs, standing to Liv’s side, said, “Oh, they were just warming up for the big breath-holding challenge.”

Treading water in the center of the lagoon, surrounded by his men, Roen called out, “The hour starts now.”

An hour? Holy Christ.

One of the women, a redhead with short hair, standing toward the front, held up a stopwatch and gave it a click. “Go!”

Nice. Crowd participation
, Liv thought.

The men disappeared into the depths of the lagoon, and Liv couldn’t help but hold her breath, too.

The same woman to her side whispered, “I hear some of the men never come back up.”

“What do you mean?” Liv asked.

The woman shrugged. “They told us all sorts of stories on the ship and one of them said that there are tunnels and currents down there. Some of the men get sucked in and never make it out.”

“The island probably eats them,” Liv mumbled.

“Ha!” The woman laughed. “Well, she’ll have to get in line. Because we came a long way for a nibble of delicious merman.”