MERCILESS (The Mermen Trilogy #3) (7 page)

The first cabin she’d found, not more than five minutes from the Great Hall, had a small light glowing through the front window. When she knocked, no one answered, so she burst through the front door and went straight for the kitchen. She began rummaging through the cupboards, finding them empty.

“Who the hell are you?” said a strange female voice.

“Oh shit.” Liv yelped and jumped. A woman, blonde with a petite frame and a round face, stood in the doorway. She wore a white cotton dress and a giant machete as her accessory.

Oh no.
There must’ve been another Collection. That was when the men who lived here went to the mainland and brought back women for the world’s most awesome date night, merman style, complete with deadly hand-to-hand combat to compete for the different women.

“Who are you?” the woman asked again, her gray eyes twitching with aggression.

Liv raised her palms to highlight she was unarmed. “My name is Liv. I was a prisoner on this island once just like you. I can get you out of here, but I need to find something first. The men here use this special water. It—”

“I am not a prisoner,” the woman said. “And I’m well aware what their water does. It’s how they cured me.”

“Cured you? Of what?” Had this woman caught the same illness as Roen?

“Of being a maid.”

Liv stared, wondering if she was joking. It didn’t look like it. “You’re serious?”

“Yes. And the man dying in the bedroom is my mate.”

“I’m s-s-sorry,” Liv stuttered. “Can you just…say all that over again? You were a mermaid, and—” Liv blew out a breath. “How’d they change you again?”

“They gave us the last of the sacred water, and now there isn’t any left.”

The utter amazement of that information was trumped by the other part of the sentence. “What do you mean ‘there isn’t any left’?” Liv didn’t want to believe it.

The woman shook her head. “None. We’ve been through every inch of the island. Can you believe these idiots used it all up just to save a few of us? Why would they do that? Now, after everything we’ve been through, we have to sit here and watch them die.”

Liv took a seat at the small kitchen table in the center of the room, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her. All of the water was gone. All of it.

She leaned forward and scrubbed her face with her hands, groaning.
I can’t give up. I can’t.

“Do you know why the men are sick?” Liv asked.

The woman shot Liv a bitter look.

“You don’t know,” Liv concluded.

“It started the day after I was brought back. All I know is the men thought it might be a punishment, but the island is dying, too.”

Fuck. There has to be something we can do.
“So how many maids were transformed?”

“Only sixty-three of us.”

“Can you round them up and have them come to Roen’s home? This is all connected. It has to be.” She just didn’t have the necessary pieces to put it all together.

“They won’t leave their men. Neither will I,” said the woman.

“Goddammit!” Liv slammed her fist down on the table, feeling exhausted and emotionally frazzled. Roen didn’t have much time left. “Get your head out of your ass. I don’t see anyone around here who is going to save them, so if you and the other ladies would like to perhaps avoid your mates dying, then tell them to meet me in Roen’s fucking house. Yesterday would be nice.”

The woman’s eyes flickered with irritation for a moment. “I remember you now. You’re the one the island said we couldn’t eat.”

“What?”

“I don’t remember much from the time I was a maid—bits and pieces like a bad dream—being underwater, the hunger, and how my heart ached all the time, missing someone I couldn’t really remember. But I remember you. I remember your voice. I remember the island telling us we had to help Shane pretend to kill you.”

Okay. Weird
. “Do you remember why you guys helped him?”

“Not really. I think we were told it was the only way you’d live. We didn’t want you to die. But that’s all I know.”

Okay. Really fucking weird
. “I have no clue what that means, but if you’d please round everyone up. As quickly as you can.”

“What do you hope to accomplish?” the woman asked.

“We’re women. We figure shit out. That’s what we do.”

The lady cocked a blonde brow. “I’m not sure one single landlover has the power to change anything.”

Liv was about to tell her to stop talking and start moving, but then she remembered something very important. “Speaking of landlovers, have you or anyone seen a woman named Dana? She’s a landlover—looks a lot like me.”

“No. No other landlovers on the island that I’ve seen.”

Dammit.
Someone had to know what happened to her.

“Where is Roen’s brother?” Liv asked, knowing he’d helped arrange to get Dana off the island. Perhaps he knew something.

The woman shrugged. “Not sure exactly. He stopped checking on everyone last night. But I think he’s been staying in Roen’s home.”

Lyle had probably been the one who’d wrapped Roen’s shoulder. So where’d he go? He wouldn’t leave Roen dying on the bathroom floor.

Liv rubbed the back of her neck, shooing away the dread and goosebumps. There were only two rooms she hadn’t checked: Roen’s library and Roen’s basement, where he and the elders—a bunch of crotchety, old, chauvinistic mermen—met to discuss very important mermanly things that women weren’t allowed in on.

Liv suddenly wondered where the elders were.
I hope dead already.
At least that Naylor man, anyway. He looked like a mummified asshole—wrinkly with saggy skin and hazy green eyes. He was cruel, arrogant, and—okay, a typical merman. But he’d been one of the people to help Shane steal her away and tried to get Roen killed.

Liv looked up at the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Amelia. At least, that’s what my mate, Jason, tells me. I don’t remember.”

“You’re Jason’s woman?”

She nodded. “I am.”

Jason was a tall blonde man who was one of Shane’s posse. He’d thrown her to her death. “I’ll try not to hold it against you.” The truth was, she liked Jason in a strange way. Or she did up until the point he had carried out her execution. “And if you want to save him, get the women to Roen’s. I’ll meet you all there.”

With flashlight in hand, Liv hit the trail, sprinting back to Roen’s house. Every step she took felt like two steps back, moving her further and further away from hope. It felt like she was being tested and pushed to the edge. It had felt that way since the moment she’d woken up at Shane’s.

An endurance challenge created from every fear and nightmare she’d ever had.
Yet, here you are. Still alive. Still fighting. So shut the hell up, Liv, and stop your whining. Roen needs you.

Winded and exhausted, Liv entered the home and pushed herself up the stairs to check on Roen. He was exactly where she’d left him, of course, only now he wasn’t groaning, and his skin looked like someone had taken a sponge coated with black paint and covered nearly his entire body.

“Roen? Can you hear me?” She knelt down beside him and listened to his breathing. It was shallow, barely there.

She placed her forehead against his chest. “Roen, I love you. Please hang on. I’ll find a way to save you. I promise. Just don’t leave me.”

His chest seemed to puff up just a little higher then.

“That’s right. You just keep breathing.” She wanted to believe that he’d heard her. Hell, maybe he had. Which is why she said, “Roen, just know I’ll give everything to save you—my life if I have to. I don’t care if I die; I just want you to live.” He’d given up so much to save her, and every time she thought about it, it had upset her. She never wanted to live at his expense. And though she knew he’d feel the same way about her giving up her life to save him, it didn’t matter. A world without him in it just didn’t make any sense.

He sighed deeply, and she adjusted the pillow underneath his head. She then removed her backpack and uncapped a bottle of water. It wasn’t sacred, but at least it might hydrate him. She tried to get him to sip, but he simply lay there, out cold.

Oh God.
This was so bad.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?” She made her way downstairs, hoping to find Lyle. She entered the library and her feet made a squishing sound. The rug was wet and the fish tank that once held dozens of saltwater fish was now half empty. No fish. The water was all over the floor, rotting the wood and making the place smell damp and moldy.

“Lyle? Are you in here?” She walked down the long aisles of dusty old, leather-bound books. It didn’t escape her that there were thousands of years of history in this archive and probably the answer to every question about this place.
If I only had time to read all of this stuff
.

“I don’t fucking believe it,” said a deep, deep voice.

Liv practically jumped out of her skin. “Lyle.” She whooshed out a breath, taking in the view of him. His long brown hair was matted and his ratty beard looked like he hadn’t combed it in months. His normally tanned face was a mask of inky splotches. Even his upper torso and legs were covered, which she could see because he only wore a piece of red cloth around his waist.

“How are you alive?” His body began leaning to one side, and he caught himself on the wall. “I killed you,” he mumbled.

She rushed over to help steady him. “What’s happening, Lyle? Why’s everyone sick? And where the hell is Dana?”

“You’re a ghost coming to take me to the afterlife, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Lyle.” She gripped his arm. “Fucking look at me. Do I look dead to you?”

His green eyes met hers, flickering with confusion. “I put the machete in your back with my own two hands. I watched you bleed out in the living room. I fed your body to your sisters.”

Okay. Eww. And gross.
And… “Lyle! I’m not dead! Shane took me. He made it look like the maids ate me, but he had some sort of deal with them—or the island did—I don’t know! But I’m alive and Roen is dying and Dana never made it home. So please tell me what’s happening.”

Lyle’s knees gave out under the weight of his massive body and he slid down to the floor.

With his bare back now against the wall, Lyle’s head sagged forward. Compared to Roen, who was a large, muscular and lean man, Lyle made his six-foot-six brother look like a Shrinky Dink.

“Who did I kill? Who did I kill?” he mumbled.

Liv felt terrified—what was new—but someone being dead wasn’t something she could fix.

“I don’t know, Lyle, but I need to save your brother and you and…” She swallowed. “And this damned island if I have to.” Though she hoped to God that saving Crazy Dirt was not the answer. This island needed to die. It needed to sink to the fiery pits of hell and burn. It was evil. “Tell me anything you know.” She shook him hard while his eyes fluttered toward the back of his head. “What’s happening? What made you sick? And where. The hell. Is Dana?”

“Dana got on the plane,” Lyle mumbled, almost incoherent.

Liv stared at his splotchy face, trying to sort through his words. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”

“Yes.”

Oh crap. Dana.
Her stomach twisted.

He went on, “Then Roen left. But he swam back. We broke our ties with the island and started transforming the women.”

This wasn’t helping her. He was too out of it.

“Okay,” she said, trying to stay calm. “How did you break ties with the island?” If they’d broken ties, then that could have caused their illness.

Ugh.
She didn’t know.

Lyle slumped over completely and closed his eyes.

“Lyle.” Liv gave him a poke just as she heard female voices coming inside the house. The women were here. And Liv had to do what any good academic might: Discard the facts that didn’t fit. Include anything with a possible link. Keep an open mind.

Fuck me.
She rose from the floor and rushed down the hall to meet the women, who flowed in one by one. They were of different ages and shapes, races, and sizes. Some wore oversized T-shirts and those strips of black cloth around their waists, probably clothes they’d borrowed from the men. Others wore those long black knit dresses—one size fits all—the men kept around for guests.

“Everyone,” Liv said, holding up one hand, “please go to the living room.”

A thin brunette with a wicked scowl growled at Liv. “Our sister’s blood soils the floor.”

Still standing in the hallway, Liv approached the living room just off of the foyer and peeked around the corner. She glanced at the brown spot on the wood floor. Was this where Lyle’s mystery woman had died?

“I’m sorry…um…let’s go to the dining room.” Liv pointed to her right. That room was really more like a banquet hall with a table long enough to seat forty or fifty people. It had three fireplaces and large merman-themed oil paintings—ships in storms being gobbled up by sea creatures, mermen battling each other with swords, and a bunch of other depressing crap.

Standing, Liv waited impatiently at the head of the table while the women filed inside and gathered around the table. Seemed everyone was in a hurry to get this over with, so no one sat.

Liv sucked in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, realizing for the first time that she was about to address a group of ex-mermaids who didn’t really remember much, but seemed to have maintained a little bit of that ruthless maid vibe.

“Okay,” Liv said. “First, I want to say that I know it’s not easy separating yourselves from your men, but mine is upstairs injured and dying, too, as we speak. So while I understand your pain, please understand what I’m about to say: Your pain doesn’t fucking matter. Your broken hearts don’t matter. The only thing that matters is saving the men we love. Anything else is just noise that will cease to have any importance the moment they stop breathing.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are, landlover? You think you know anything about our pain and what we’ve lost?” growled a black woman with beautiful long spiraled curls that flowed down her back.

Liv then realized that these women had already lost their men. It was simple math. There were only about two hundred mermen, because the island kept killing them off. Roen said so. But only about half had mates—that was one hundred. She knew because she’d seen the men at one of their gatherings on her last lovely visit. Over half wore the color red, which meant they were still single, so to speak. But Roen had also told her there were over two thousand maids. Over time, the men died, and their mates, who were bitten as was the law—
thank you, evil island
—became maids. So not every woman who’d been transformed back found a happy reunion. And those who found their merman still alive now got the joy of watching him die.