MERMEN (The Mermen Trilogy #1) (3 page)

“Yes, sir?”

“What ships do we have on the Seattle to Shanghai route?”

“One moment.” Cherie clicked away on her keyboard. “You’ve got one ship departing Chinese waters now and an empty vessel unloading at port.”

“Here in Seattle?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Tell the crew I’m sailing with them.”

“Uh…okay. Is everything all right, sir?” It was highly unusual for Roen to ever step foot on a ship, and that was because the motion made him violently ill. Ironic, given his fascination with boats, but maybe it was his disdain for the sea that drove his need to conquer it. He wasn’t sure, nor did he care. Just as long as he didn’t have to go swimming. Or touch any fish. Fish were vile.

“Everything’s fine,” he replied. “Just cancel my meetings the rest of the week. If anything urgent comes up, send it to Orman.” Dylan Orman was president of operations and his right-hand man for the last decade. Orman could handle most anything in a pinch.

“Yes, sir. I’ll do it right away,” Cherie said.

“Good. And make sure there’s a helicopter onboard.” Every ship had a landing pad for emergencies, but rarely carried air transport. They’d definitely be needing one if he was going to find the exact spot on the map.

He hung up the phone and suddenly felt that dark cloud washing over him again. His heart pounded like a goddamned war drum and his gut twisted into excruciating knots.
What the hell is wrong with me?

CHAPTER THREE

Lying on a hard floor, her body screaming with pain, Liv awoke on her back and stared up at a beamed ceiling.
Dear God, where am I?

She lifted her head slowly. The room, with quaint French windows, reminded her of a beach bungalow she’d once stayed at. Only, this home, whoever it belonged to, was sparsely decorated. No pictures on the light-gray, wood-paneled walls. No light fixtures, either. Just two hand-carved chairs and a small wooden table in the corner.

Water, I need water,
she thought, once again feeling herself drift out of consciousness, the room beginning to fade to black. She knew she only had minutes left if she wanted to live. Her heart rate was rapid, her body shivered, and every muscle spasmed.
Maybe you’re dead already.
Of course, she’d thought the same this morning when a strange man tore part of a shark’s head off and then towed her raft to shore like some bizarre dream.

Oh, God. I’m so thirsty.
Why hadn’t the man given her water? That question was more important than any of the others, but dying did that to a person—made everything else feel trivial. Where she was or how that man had managed to slay a shark with his bare hands were questions that would only matter if she lived.

The front door swung open, and sunlight poured inside from behind the tall, strong silhouette of a nearly naked man.

“Why’s she covered in blood?” said another man with a deep, authoritative voice, from somewhere outside.

“I killed a shark. It got messy.” The man standing in the doorway shrugged. “But you’d better decide about her quickly.”

“Do
not
push me, Shane,” said the man outside.

Shane. The guy in the doorway is Shane,
she thought.

Shane shook his head. “I merely meant to point out that she’s almost dead.”

“I can see that, asshole. But what I cannot understand is how she got here.”

“She was sent to me by the ocean,” Shane said, “which is why I wish to keep her; she is a gift.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Right you are. She is a gift, but who says this pretty package was meant for you?”

“But—”

“Did she come labeled with your name?” the man outside asked.

“No,” said Shane.

“Then you will give her sacred water, and she will be put up for claiming. Tonight.”

There was a low growl from Shane. “She’s not worth dying for. Look at her.”

“Then that’s your choice. But say another word, Shane, and you’ll be spending the night with the maids.”

Maids. Do they have butlers, too?

Liv heard heavy steps crushing rocks and dirt as the man walked away. Moments later, Shane kneeled over her, holding something in his hands. “What a fucking asshole,” he grumbled. “All right, sweetheart, drink up.” He lifted her head and held a leather pouch with a spout to her lips.

The water touched her tongue, and she’d never tasted anything so delicious—better than any chocolate or pastry. Better than any kiss she’d ever experienced.

She opened her mouth and swallowed. The liquid coated her dry, burning throat as it went down. She grabbed his hand and held on, vigorously sucking the life-giving water.

“That’s right,” he said, “drink up.” But the way he said it sounded angry, like he wanted her to choke on it. She couldn’t imagine why, but she didn’t care. The damned water tasted so good.

Within seconds of the water entering her mouth, she felt an odd sensation as her body absorbed the fluid. Her vision immediately cleared, and her mind right along with it.

Holy crap.
People didn’t recover that quickly from dehydration. Then again, what did she know? She was half out of her mind, and there were no events in her life she could compare to.

When the water ran out, she looked up at the man, now seeing him clearly. His deep green eyes shimmered with the sunlight pouring in through the open doorway. His beard was short enough that she could see the angular contours of his twenty-something face, and his long, black hair hung in unkempt ropes as though it hadn’t been brushed in a very long while.

He smiled and displayed a perfect set of white teeth. “Better?”

“More,” she said, relieved to hear the sound of her own voice again—clear and smooth, not rough and scratchy from lack of moisture.

“That was enough to keep you from dying.” He stood and headed for the door. “Not that it matters now since I don’t get to have you,” he grumbled under his breath. “I’ll be back in a while to check on you. And if you value your life, you won’t leave this dwelling.”

Liv’s brain tried to process Shane’s words, but her body felt overwhelmed with a burst of tingles and heat.

She looked at her cracked, blistered hands. The skin began healing right in front of her eyes.
What in the…?

“Wait!” she yelled at the brawny, shirtless man closing the door. “What did you give me?”

He stopped and shot her a look. “Water,” he said with a voice so frigid that she knew he didn’t welcome her question, nor would he be providing further details. But it was more than water. She’d just watched her body spontaneously heal.

“Can you at least tell me where I am?”

He flashed a sinister grin. “I already told you, on the island of El Corazón.”

“Where is that?” She’d never heard of it.

“It’s the center of the ocean, the center of everything.”

That made no sense. In fact, it sounded downright creepy. “Do you have a phone? I need to call my family and tell them I’m okay.”

He stared at her as if she were the daftest person on the planet.

Oh, God.
The two men had just talked about keeping her. Yes, now that her mind cleared, they’d said they were going to put her up for something they called “claiming.”

“You’re not going to let me leave here, are you?” she asked, having already realized the truth.

He laughed. “There is only one way off this island—for a woman, that is. As you’ll see soon enough.”

Oh, Jesus.
She assumed he meant a body bag or stuffed into a drum or some other hideous form of body disposal. Of course, that would come after they did stuff to her—that’s what this “claiming” had to be.

“Just so you know, I’d slit my own throat before I’d let anyone rape me,” she said evenly, meaning every word. Liv volunteered at a battered women’s shelter near her apartment in Seattle—where she attended college and lived during the school year. The work had started out as a three-week commitment as part of a class assignment related to a women’s issues course. But three weeks became four and then five and then a year. It wasn’t always easy finding time to volunteer, while holding down a part-time job as a professor’s assistant and working on her PhD, but from day one, Liv couldn’t turn her back on those women. They came to that old brick building near the marina broken, desperate, and looking for salvation. The brutality of men was something Liv would never understand. And with every face she saw—some with small children in tow—and every hand she held, Liv began hating the men who preyed on women. With every fiber of her being. It was an unspeakable atrocity to use a woman’s love against her like that, distorting it into some sort of psychological noose. She’d rather die than let one of those disgusting excuses for a man touch her.

Shane raised a brow and grinned sadistically. “In the island’s five thousand years of recorded history, not one woman has ever been forced. They always give willingly. You’ll be no different once you’ve been claimed.”

Does he think I’m an idiot?
Whoever these men were, they had no intention of treating her like a human being.

Shane grabbed the handle to close the door. “Like I said; if you value your life, you’ll stay here until I come for you.”

“If I don’t?” she asked to test him.

He flashed an ominous smile over his bronzed bare shoulder. “We have all sorts of monsters on this island. You wouldn’t want to make one angry.”

He closed the door behind him, and Liv hopped from the floor, scrambling to the window to watch him disappear into the thick vegetation of the forest.

She looked down at her now perfectly healed feet, running the men’s conversation through her head. She would be put up for some kind of grabs they’d called a “claiming” tonight. No, she had no fucking clue where she was or where she’d go, but sitting in this cabin, waiting for them to return was stupid. Whatever “monsters” were out there would be better than facing the monsters who’d “rescued” her. Then there was the fact that he’d ripped the jaw off of a shark. A shark. Ten feet long.

Her head whipped around, and she headed for the doorway that led to a small kitchen with shelves on one wall opposite a grimy fireplace. Another small table occupied the center of the room, and on it, she found a small cloth sack with a cinch next to a bowl of apples. She grabbed some fruit and stuffed them inside the bag. On the wooden shelves, she saw bunches of dried herbs—tea perhaps—bottles of what smelled like rum, some preserves, a few mugs and…

She picked up a clear bottle and gave it a sniff.
Odorless.
Was this that stuff Shane had given her? Because having more of it probably wasn’t a good idea. On the other hand, if she found nothing else, she might be forced to drink it anyway. She placed it in the little sack and tied the cinch around her wrist.

She then charged back out to the living room and upstairs, where she found a small bedroom with a hammock in the corner and a few narrow shelves just opposite. A copy of
The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud
lay next to a stack of black linen cloths.

Okay. That’s strange
. What would he be doing with that book? Liv grabbed one of the cloths and held it up, realizing this was what Shane wore around his waist. Other than that, she found nothing. Not even a bathroom. He lived like a man from the 1800s—nothing modern, everything made by hand.

She grabbed two of the cloths and tied one around each foot in lieu of shoes before bolting downstairs and out the back door of the kitchen. Sprinting for her life into the forest and following the distant sound of waves, Liv ducked sharp branches and weaved through thorny bushes. The forest reminded her of home with the crisp pine-scented air and dense, hardy foliage. Her home was also an island, but they had snowcapped mountains, bears, and salmon, not gargantuan psychopaths.

After ten minutes of dodging trees and pushing her body through wall after wall of brush, she realized she didn’t feel winded. Not one little bit. Whatever that man had given her wasn’t like any narcotic or vitamin she’d ever heard of. Frankly, if she wasn’t already scared as hell, she’d be freaking the hell out about having some foreign substance in her body.

When she finally reached the black and gold-sanded shore, she halted in shock. The entire sky shimmered and sparkled with hues of flaming orange. It was magnificent but frightening, because skies like that only existed in dreams.

Yeah, but this isn’t a dream. You need to find a way off this island. A small boat. A phone…something.

Looking side to side, trying to figure out which way to run, someone sacked her from behind, and she fell into the sand.

“I warned you, landlover!” It was that Shane guy.

He picked her up and twisted her around to face him. “This time, I’m going to tie you—”

Liv thrust her knee into his groin and the man instantly released her, groaning in agony. She ran as fast as she could, trying to stick to the wetter, firmer sand, hoping she could make it just around the bend ahead, where she might have a chance of cutting inland and hiding.

Run, Liv. Run hard. You’re almost—

“You stupid bitch!” Shane pushed her from behind, and her entire body flew into the shallow waves. He grabbed the back of her neck and shoved her face down, holding her under the sandy, turbulent water.

Oh God. Oh God. He’s trying to kill me.
She clawed at his hands and kicked as hard as she could, but he was so strong. Just when she felt her panicked, out-of-breath body demanding air—air that wasn’t there—Shane pulled her up.

She sucked in a breath and screamed, “Help! Somebody!”

“I’ll help you, you cunt,” Shane bellowed with sadistic joy. “Now take a big breath because it might be your last.”

“No!” she yelled.

Shane gripped her by a fistful of hair and pushed her under again. She twisted and clawed for her life, thinking for sure this was it and feeling angry as hell that her life would end like this. It wasn’t fair to make it so far, only to die at the hands of some asshole.

Unexpectedly, Shane let her up. “Lucky for you, your fate’s already been decided.” Then he dragged her from the water and threw her over his shoulder so quickly it nearly gave her whiplash.