MERMEN (The Mermen Trilogy #1) (19 page)

Me.

“Did the island tell you all this herself?” Liv had a very difficult time imagining the two of them just sitting around, chatting about molecular biology over a cup of coffee.

“My people keep records and several world-renowned scientists live on the island to study her and help keep her healthy, which grows harder to do every year. The oceans are growing toxic, and every year she produces less and less water.”

Liv would need a very, very long time for any of this to truly sink in and decide how much she believed. Nevertheless… “None of what you said explains what you’re doing to those women.”

“They’re insurance, Liv. The island is afraid, and when people are afraid, they do what they must to survive.”

Liv rubbed her face and sighed. “I still don’t understand.”

“Neither did I at first, but this is what I’ve been doing these last few months. Understanding, sifting through centuries of legends and folklore to get to the truth.”

“Which is?” she said.

“It all has to change. That’s why I’m really there. Our ancestors once lived exclusively in the ocean. Then one day, they grew tired of watching after the island and decided to explore the world. Our folklore says the island brought them back, then took away their fins and gave them legs to keep them from leaving. Soon after, they learned to build boats and tried to escape again. The island had to come up with another plan. She knew that the men of our kind were fiercely protective of our women and would never leave them willingly. So she changed the women back into creatures of the sea, this time making them nocturnal, unable to endure exposure to sunlight. Without the ability to swim in daylight, the women can’t get far and must seek shelter from the light in the underwater caves that run beneath the island.”

Liv blinked at Roen, trying to take it all in.
Don’t start crying hysterically. Don’t start crying hysterically. Maybe Roen isn’t crazy…
Fact was, she’d seen the women’s reaction to the sun—like damned aquatic vampires or something—but there’d been one who hadn’t reacted to the light.

“Obviously,” Roen continued, “the men protested and stopped drinking the water. We began growing old and dying off, so the island had to strike a compromise. We would conceive children on the island so that she could ensure they would be male—warriors—bound to her. And when those children grew up and returned, they’d take their father’s place and he’d have his woman returned to him as she once was. They’d be free to leave.”

If any,
any
of this fantasy were true, then it sounded more like a hostage situation.

“So the men serve dutifully,” she said, “hoping their women will be given back. You understand how all of this is crazy, right?”

“I do.” He took a sip of his wine. “The problem is that the island didn’t keep her word. Not yet, anyway. Shortly after my people agreed to her terms, the island was invaded by Spanish explorers looking for the Fountain of Youth. We were unprepared and outnumbered, so we lost control of the island. If it weren’t for the women—who picked them off one by one—we would never have taken it back. The name the Spanish explorers gave the island, El Corazón, serves as a reminder to all of us of what could happen if we let our guard down.”

“Okay,” Liv said. “You got the island back. So why didn’t the island keep her word?”

“She says she’ll honor the agreement as soon as she feels safe again and the numbers of those who protect her are big enough. She’s been saying that for over five hundred years—and we have double the amount of men and maids.”

“I’m guessing your people aren’t so happy about that.”

“We are divided,” Roen said. “Some want to stay and protect the island. Others, especially the older ones, are at the end of their ropes. They believe that the island will never give us back our women, that she wants to keep everyone enslaved. Then there are those who believe in the scriptures—records of visions from our departed ones—which tell of a civil war. The island will lose its hold over us and be forced to set our women free. Some simply want it all to end so they can be reunited with the women they love in the afterlife.”

“What do you believe?” Liv asked.

“I believe the world has changed. We have access to defense technology, laws to prevent trespassing, and people who might protect her willingly. But until we secure the island and make her feel safe, she’ll continue demanding we have more children. And the women who turn out to be our mates will continue being turned into those creatures you saw.”

Liv had thought that island was scary the moment she stepped foot there. But now, she thought the island was downright ruthless. Those poor women, the creatures, were the island’s leverage to ensure the men didn’t leave and did what she wanted, including making more warriors to protect her. The island dangled the carrot and the men hopped.

“That’s why you’re planning to renovate—or whatever,” Liv said.

“Yes. I’m going to change things. But I have to do it carefully, in a way that won’t create the wrong reaction. The island is like a frightened child who knows everything, but doesn’t have the maturity to put it all into perspective. Her weakness is that she needs us. Our weakness is that we—humans included—need her.”

Liv wasn’t sure how much of this she believed, but Roen intended this conversation to lead somewhere. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Roen set down his glass and rubbed his chin. “Did you break your promise and tell someone about us?”

“Yes.”

“Why, Liv?”

She looked away. She didn’t want to say the truth. It was too painful.

“Why?” he yelled, causing her to jump in her seat. “She let you go. She let you walk away. Do you have any fucking idea what I gave up in return?”

So the island had used Liv as leverage against Roen? “That was why you stayed, wasn’t it?”

He looked toward the fireplace, the muscles in his jaw pulsing. “Yes.”

God.
This was worse than she feared. Liv suspected something made him stay, but she’d hoped it was something weak and easily breakable. Or perhaps, something having to do with Lyle. But him giving up his life simply because he wanted to keep her safe wasn’t what she wanted. Seeing someone you love suffer is a tragedy. Seeing someone you love suffer because of you is hell.

“After you left that room,” he said, “she told me she knew I was letting you leave, and she’d planned to punish me for it by hurting you. But I put my foot down. Lyle and I are the last Dorans in existence, and I promised her there would be no more if she touched you.”

So Roen stood up to her. Of course he would. Roen didn’t take shit from anyone.

“What did she say?” Liv asked.

“She agreed to let you go, but only if I agreed to hold a Collection.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Liv said.

“It’s when we…” Roen took a short breath, “go to land and find women to bring back to the island.”

“To claim,” Liv said disapprovingly.

“Yes. Some will become maids and some—”

“Will become mothers.” Liv couldn’t believe this. But his story explained why that man attacked her as she left the island. It also explained why those things suddenly came to her rescue—a bargain had been struck. “I-I don’t know what to say.” Liv ran her hands through her hair. It sounded like the island got what it wanted. “Other than you had no right to barter with the lives of others, or your own, just to save me.”

Roen shook his head remorsefully. “Why wouldn’t I have? It was a simple deal. As long as you kept your end of the bargain—to never tell—and I kept mine, you’d be safe.”

“How’s any of this simple?”

“The Collection would’ve happened eventually. And I would have stayed regardless.”

“Why?” she asked, her heart pounding away with volatile emotion. “Why would you want to stay there?”

“You are not safe around me. We’re like poison, Liv.”

“How can you say that?” Roen was anything but poison. That island, on the other hand…

“I watched what happens to women who stay with my kind. It eats them away, drives them mad with grief. I’d never let that happened to you, regardless of how much I want you. So in the end, I gave up nothing I wouldn’t have given anyway. But you had to tell, didn’t you?”

So he’d thrown in the towel before they’d ever had a chance, which deeply wounded her. He simply didn’t understand what he meant to her.

“I needed help, Roen. You have no idea what I’ve gone through. The media’s been looking everywhere for you. People think you were kidnapped and I helped. Your own fucking lawyer has been harassing me. But, of course, they didn’t believe me when I told them I didn’t even know you, because
you
called them.
You
told them to come get me, but you were nowhere to be found.”

“You should’ve kept your mouth shut.”

“I tried. I really did,” she said angrily. “I didn’t say a word to the FBI, who detained me for two days. And I didn’t say anything to my family. Do you know how hard it is to look them in the eyes and lie? They know me. They know I’m hiding something. Even Dana and Krista, my own two sisters, won’t speak to me because they think I don’t trust them. My life has fallen apart, Roen. I have no privacy, the press keeps printing stories that say I’m a criminal, and I can’t go back to school! But I could’ve handled all that, Roen, I really could’ve if I didn’t see your face every time I closed my eyes. I thought when I left you behind, I’d sentenced you to death because those creatures made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone about the island. Which meant I couldn’t send help for you. Which meant I couldn’t live with myself.”

Roen glared at her for a moment and then stood and walked over to the kitchen where he’d left the open bottle of wine on the counter.

He poured a generous glass, gulped it down, and then shot her a look. “All you needed to do was to live and move the fuck on, woman.”

He just doesn’t get it.
“That’s the point. I couldn’t!” she yelled. “I can’t!”

Roen planted both arms on the counter and dropped his head. “I’m a fucking bastard who’s never cared about anyone aside from Lyle and my mother. I use people, step on them, exploit their weaknesses for my own gain. I’ve made billions destroying other people’s companies, and I never gave a damn. I still don’t. And when it comes to women, I’ve fucked hundreds and don’t remember their names. Not because I can’t, but because I couldn’t give a shit about any of them.”

“What’s your goddamned point, Roen? That I’m stupid for caring about you?”

“Yes.”

She stood and walked over to the granite kitchen island, stopping directly across from him and dipping her head, hoping he’d look up and see the sincerity in her eyes.

“I think you’ve got it backwards,” she said calmly. “I’m not stupid. I’m the only one who’s ever been brave enough to care about you.” No bones about it, Roen was intimidating as hell, and his icy exterior sent a clear message: don’t be foolish enough to care about me, because I won’t care back. Which is why Liv could only assume that the women he’d slept with probably never gave a crap about him—not the real him, anyway. How could they?
Why
would they? Roen had a reputation, and anyone who picked up a tabloid knew it. But the truth was, Roen was the kind of guy who pushed people away, so all they saw was some hot, wealthy guy they could bolster their own egos with. They’d fucked Roen Doran—something to tell their friends, perhaps. Something to elevate their own statuses. At the end of the day, they’d be foolish to expect anything else out of the relationship. Unless they were willing to chisel through all those layers of ice and take the time to really see him for who he was. Strong. Defiant. Beautiful.

“Roen, you see yourself as the aggressor, but those women used you
,
too. They fucked you and let you leave. I’m guessing not one of them lifted a finger to keep you, call you, or learn a thing about you because you were nothing more than a conquest.”

With a rage-red face, Roen shot her an embittered look, but didn’t speak.

“If you want to get angry, then go ahead,” she said. “But don’t ever call me stupid for wanting you. You put your life on the line and risked everything to save me—a stranger. And when someone like me—who knows damned well they’re worth something, with a pretty damned high IQ, I’d like to add—says they can’t forget someone like you, take that as a fucking compliment.”

Roen stared for several long moments. “She wants me to kill you, Liv,” he blurted out.

Liv inhaled deeply. “You’re going to kill me?”

Okay. Maybe I
am
stupid.

“No. She wants me to kill you, and I refused. I told her that if she lays a finger on you, it’s over. I won’t help her. I’ll let them come for her.”

“Who? Who will come for her?”

“She thinks…” He ran his hands through his thick brown hair. “She thinks the landlovers are coming soon. She says she’s watched the event in her dreams. They come. They start stealing her water.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The water she produces keeps her alive, too. And just like when you give blood, you can only donate so much at once. Otherwise you’ll die. But what she can spare, she gives to the ocean and to us.”

“So she thinks that people are coming to take it all away?”

“Yes. She says the end is near. First they find her, then they drain her dry, and she dies. The rest of the world is gone shortly after.”

If that were true, then the island couldn’t afford to lose anyone—at least, she’d see it that way.
I can’t believe I’m talking about the island like she’s alive.

“So what happens if you don’t…?” Liv really didn’t want to say the words “kill me.”

“I honestly don’t know at this point, but I do know I can’t risk seeing you again. Maybe if she knows you’re out of my life, she’ll leave you alone. But you can’t tell anyone else about her or me, Liv. Not anyone.”

“I wouldn’t tell—”

Roen gave her a sharp look.

“Okay. I told my psychiatrist, but that was different. I was trying to survive, trying to figure out how the hell I could live without…” Her voice trailed off. “You.”