And then he’ll kill you.
Liv swallowed down a sour lump in her throat, knowing what she had to do.
Show no mercy.
Liv quickly jumped on top of Shane and straddled his torso. With the entire weight of her body, she pushed the knife in. Shane fell limp.
“That’s what I’ve done for the world, you asshole.” Liv jumped up and away from Shane’s lifeless body. “Oh, God!” I killed him. I killed him. She instantly hated that her life had led to this moment. She, a woman who once believed that love made the world go round, was now a killer.
Get a fucking grip, Liv. You have to get the hell out of here. Her heart began raging with the need to get to Roen. He can’t be dead. He can’t be… Shane had to be lying.
Or maybe you just don’t want to believe it. An image of Roen—that silky caramel brown hair, that strong jaw, those fierce eyes—flashed in her mind. Her heart ached to see his face again. Even if it cost her life.
You can’t give up hope. He has to be alive. There was only one way to know for sure, of course; she needed to return to El Corazón, the one thing she never thought she’d want. Easier said than done because it was an island that couldn’t easily be found by humans.
And you are stuck on a romantic getaway with Shane’s body.
CHAPTER TWO
Present Day. El Corazón Island.
This is the only option, Roen thought, gripping his hard shaft in his hand, the hot spray of the shower beating down on his back. Not like I can foke a mermaid. Even if they had the right parts, what man in his right mind would want to go there?
He let out an anguished sigh.
Goddammit, he missed Liv. The human-looking one. That…that…disgusting thing downstairs with yellow eyes, sharp teeth, and charcoal black skin, frantically stirring its tail in the giant fish tank, was not his Liv.
Not anymore.
Before being bitten, his Liv had soft brown hair and warm brown eyes. His Liv had beautiful breasts and sexy curves. Simply thinking of how she used to look got him hard. Case in point: the backbreaking erection he’d had since that morning, the result of a restless night filled with erotic Liv-dreams.
It was now nine in the evening.
What am I going to do? He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the cool white tile on the wall. He was lying to himself. His heart hurt way more than his cock. Because his time was almost out, and he had no idea how to change Liv back from that beast in his fish tank—their sacred water had no effect on her.
Hell, what does it even matter now? For some unknown reason, every man on the island was dying anyway, and as much as he wanted to save them, he was too exhausted to fight anymore.
He glanced at the strange black spots covering his arms, legs, and torso, some of them now an inch in diameter. The stiff flesh in his palm deflated like a punctured tire. Foking hell. Well, I guess that takes care of that problem.
“Ro! What the fuck are you doing in there? Jerking off?” screamed a deep familiar voice through the locked door. It was his “little” brother, Lyle. For the record, Lyle was the largest merman on the island of El Corazón. Seven feet tall, thighs and arms like tree trunks, battle-scarred skin, and merman green eyes. Like most men here, he never cut his hair or shaved unless there was a good reason—generally having to do with blending in when they went to the mainland.
“Not anymore! What the hell do you want?” Roen called out.
“Liv escaped from the tank!” Lyle screamed.
Fantastic. She was probably looking for food. Sadly, they were all hungry, but there was no way on or off the island. For some mysterious reason, the maids—almost two thousand of them—surrounded the shores, blocking the harbor. No, he and his men couldn’t kill them—those maids were like his Liv downstairs in that tank. Monsters or not, mermen felt protective of their females.
His other option, to call someone from his shipping company to bring food by plane or a boat, was a nonstarter, as well. Humans couldn’t see El Corazón unless they were right on top of it, and if they managed to spot it, the island had a way of making sure unwanted visitors died before ever stepping one foot on shore. He couldn’t sentence one of his employees to die.
“What do you want me to do?” Lyle screamed.
“How the hell should I know?”
“She’s your mate!” Lyle replied.
Meaning, Lyle was not at all thrilled about going through the house looking for the thing. A maid was ten times stronger than a merman and, from what he could tell, they were only five percent human. The other ninety-five percent was pure savage animal.
But she’s your Liv. God, how he loved her. Could their lives be any more of a goddamned mess? He tried reminding himself to be grateful Liv was even alive. She’d been thrown to the maids by Shane’s men—a punishment for breaking some law, which was a lie.
That didn’t matter now. What mattered was Liv had survived somehow. Of course, she’d been bitten and transformed—something he hadn’t even known to be possible. He thought only a merman’s bite changed a woman. However, on this island, anything was possible. Usually bad possibles.
“Foke. I’ll be there in a minute,” Roen yelled. “Tell the men to leave the house.” God forbid Liv eat one of his guards.
“Hurry the foke up, then,” Lyle barked as Roen turned off the water and stepped out, grabbing a towel from a hook on the wall. The “foke” was a jab at Roen’s Scottish accent. It only came out when he swore or really lost his temper.
As Roen dried off in his luxuriously appointed bathroom of imported white Italian marble, he couldn’t help thinking how ridiculous it was to be out in the middle of the Pacific, living like this and pretending to be civilized. He wasn’t simply referring to the bathroom—his home, for example, was a modern, two-story palace. They also had a science center with state-of-the-art equipment for studying the island. They had solar power and a small medical clinic. There was every luxury known to the human world on this island, yet their world was the same savage nightmare it had been for the last few thousand years, centered on protecting this evil island. And for thousands of years his people had been bowing to her, obeying her, killing for her. All because they believed she was sacred. All because someone somewhere—long before his time—claimed the world could not go on without her.
He had to wonder, though, was she really the heart of the planet? Did her water really create the spark of life in all living creatures following conception? That was what their folklore said, but he simply couldn’t believe it. Something so evil couldn’t possibly create life.
Doesn’t matter. We’re all done kneeling to her. And they might be dying from this mysterious illness now, but at least they were free.
Roen finished toweling off and then tied a long piece of soft suede around his waist to cover his lower torso. Modesty was a human concept, but the men here were unbendable when it came to tradition. Getting naked was reserved only for fighting or fucking.
He tied back his jaw-length hair with a small piece of leather and then opened the door, expecting to see Lyle. Instead, he heard screaming somewhere inside the house.
What the foke! Roen dashed through his bedroom, following the sounds of the grunts and cries downstairs.
It was his brother. Foking hell.
When Roen arrived to the large open living room, he froze. Lyle was on his back next to the stone fireplace, the mermaid hunched over him, her sharp teeth inches from his throat.
“No! Liv, let him go!” Roen demanded with his deep, authoritative voice, distracting her for a moment. It was enough for Lyle to tip her over and plow his large fist into her face. Liv shrieked and reeled back, but the blow hadn’t injured her.
She hissed and then lunged for her Lyle-meat. Roen rushed to block her and they collided in midair. He fell to the ground, hearing the sound of bones crunch. He looked at his shoulder and realized she’d torn a massive chunk right out of him, blood everywhere.
He yelled and tried to use his
good arm to push her off, but she was too hungry and he was too weak. A small part of him wondered if this wasn’t meant to be. He always said he would die for her. His Liv. The one woman in the world who’d been brave enough to love him.
Roen suddenly heard a loud grunt and the maid went limp on top of his body. Roen looked up at Lyle, who hovered over them with a bloody machete in his hand.
Where had he gotten it?
“No. No. What have you done, Lyle?” Roen felt every particle in his body crumbling under the cold weight of anguish. “What the hell have you done!”
The look in Lyle’s green eyes could only be described as despair. “I am s-s-sorry,” he stuttered. “But it was either you or her.”
Roen rolled her body off and gazed into her yellow eyes. “Liv.” He brushed the thick ropes of black, seaweed-like hair from her face. “Can you hear me?” He panted his words. “Don’t go. Please don’t go…” But the blood had already begun forming a sticky dark red pool around them.
The creature gazed up at Roen. “Love you,” she murmured before the life vanished from her eyes.
~~~
Trying not to think about the enormous limp form on the dining room floor, Liv began searching Shane’s beach house for a phone. She started in the small, immaculate kitchen with sparkling-white appliances, but found nothing except for some pantry items and new cooking and eating utensils. Shane really had been feathering his “love” nest for a while.
Sicko.
She opened the door that led to a back porch, wondering if there might be a satellite dish on the roof or a landline leading inside.
Again, she saw nothing.
There has to be something. Shane wouldn’t have zero communication with the outside world. Mermen were paranoid about humans. They monitored their every move. That required at least a cell phone or Internet.
Liv went back inside and made her way to the single bedroom toward the end of the hallway right next to the bathroom. Like the rest of the house, it was clean and simple and smelled like new carpet. The moment she looked at the king-sized bed with its fresh linens, a violent wave of nausea hit her. He’d purchased the thing for their “fucking,” no doubt.
Killing him had been too kind.
She made her way back through the dining room—don’t look, don’t look—and living room, to the front door. When she opened it and stepped outside, a cold gust of ocean air slammed into her. She bit back a hard shiver, but it wasn’t the wind that evoked the reaction. It was the sun setting over the wide, blue ocean.
Oh, God. I really am on another island.
But she wasn’t about to spend one more minute than she had to inside that house let alone an entire night. So if there were no phones to call for help, there had to be a boat.
Barefoot, she made her way down the sandy, wood-plank steps to the beach. In each direction, she saw only long stretches of shoreline.
No boats? No dock? She wanted to scream.
There had to be a way off this hellhole. She ran along the beach, hoping she might see some signs of civilization up around the bend, but when she got there, she merely found more uninhabited beach. Inland looked to be forest.
Winded, she doubled over and took a moment. That was when she noticed the blood on her hands. Her stomach knotted, and she made her way to the shallow salty waves. She cupped her shaking hands, filling them with water, and began scrubbing off the sticky blood. She needed to calm down and think rationally about all this.
Another gust of freezing, salty air slammed into her, making her wet hands sting from the cold. Her toes were already numb.
Liv glanced back at the beach house that sat on wooden stilts, its wash of faded white paint giving it more of a grayish color. She had to go back inside. She had to find warm clothes and shoes. Then she would keep looking for Shane’s…
You’re an idiot, Liv. Where did any man keep his cell phone?
Oh, God. In his pocket.
Liv took a breath, allowing the frigid ocean air to fill her up like a stiff drink. “Okay. He’s dead. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she whispered to herself. Except facing the fact you just killed a man with a fucking butter knife.
But he would’ve killed her, no question about it. And that was what she had to keep reminding herself.
Liv walked back toward the house, the fading sunlight now casting a morbid shadow over the dwelling.
She made her way up the sandy steps, her body trembling so hard, she thought she might finally vomit. Phone. Phone. You need that phone. Liv entered the home and made her way into the dining room and immediately jumped back, pressing her back to the wall.
The body was gone.
No, no, no. Liv’s heart nearly thumped out of her chest. Where was he? Oh God. She hadn’t killed him, and now he was going to slaughter her. This was straight out of every horror movie she’d ever seen.
Liv’s eyes then noticed a trail of blood smeared across the gleaming hardwood floor, leading into Shane’s kitchen. Then she heard it. That sound she’d never forget in a million years. It reminded her of an animal trapped in hell, crying out for its soul. It was the sound of hunger and pain.
Mermaid. Liv’s eyes went wide.
But this couldn’t be right. Why would a maid be here? Had he brought some along to protect his home? Or to keep me from leaving.
She tiptoed toward the kitchen, listening to a crunching sound. Oh shit. That’s definitely a maid. And it was…eating something. Shane.
She winced and then glanced over her shoulder, looking for something—anything—to fight the monster off of him. She needed that phone.
She went over to the table, picked up one of the chunky wooden chairs, and tiptoed over to the kitchen doorway.
One. Two…three! She rushed in and immediately spotted the inky form, at least twelve feet long, its long black tail fluttering against one of the bottom cabinets like a happy cat snacking on a tasty mouse. The back door had been left wide open. She’d let it in.
Liv swung hard, hitting the maid in the back of the head. The thing wailed and fell to the side, but the creature quickly shook it off. It popped up on its hand, lifting its muscular torso from the floor, and then zeroed its horrifying yellow eyes right on Liv’s face.
Liv swung the chair again, but this time the maid caught it with its sharp, black claws.
“Mine,” it growled.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Obviously, the maid wasn’t talking about Shane’s chair.
“I-I-I don’t want him,” Liv blurted out, suddenly wondering why the creature hadn’t attacked. “I just want the phone in his pocket.” She had no idea why she’d said that, because rationalizing with this thing was clearly moronic. But then again, she’d once gotten a maid to back off of Dana, her younger sister, by threatening it.
Keeping her eyes locked on the creature, Liv pointed to Shane. “Phone. It’s in his pocket. That’s all I want.” At least, Liv hoped there was a phone.
The thing blinked at her, its razor-sharp teeth dripping with blood. Suddenly, it pulled away from Shane. The thing then flipped its tail out the back door, leaving half its enormous body—the dangerous half—still inside. There were only four feet at best between the maid and its meal. Was it a trap? Was the maid just waiting for Liv to get closer so she could attack and have her for dessert?
“Go all the way outside,” Liv commanded, realizing how insane it was to demand anything from this creature.
The thing looked like it didn’t understand, but then it slithered back several more feet, placing its head and arms just outside the door.
Okay. She listened to me. And she’d followed Liv’s instructions to a tee. It was now outside.
Liv didn’t want to push her luck with this game of Simon Says, so she took her chance, stepping slowly toward the body. When she glanced down, Liv almost hurled. The maid had been eating Shane’s foot.
Oh, God. Don’t look. Don’t look. She reached for his front pockets but found them empty. It took everything she h
ad not to cry, but she didn’t. She rolled Shane over and spotted the faint outline of a rectangle in his back pocket.
Thank God. She grabbed the phone and jumped back.
The maid looked at Liv expectantly as she turned to leave, but then Liv had to wonder… She knew Shane had been mated because men on El Corazón wore only three colors of those little man-skirts. Red meant they were single. Black meant they’d been mated. Brown suede was worn only by the leader and elders. Shane had always worn black. Of course, being mated in their world had nothing to do with monogamy, but mates were bound to each other.
And they go crazy if they’re separated for too long. “Are you his woman?”
The creature glanced down at the body and then back at Liv. “Not. Any. More,” it said, with a voice so scratchy and deep that it reminded Liv of those poor people who spoke with voice boxes after getting throat cancer. Then the thing smiled at her. A giant, bloody smile flashing those sharp, sharp teeth.
Jesus. Liv backed out of the room. “He-he’s all yours, the-then.” Liv bolted outside with the device in her hand. The sunlight had almost completely faded, and if more of those creatures were around, this was the time of day they went hunting for food. On land.
Liv headed into the forest, away from the waves, and didn’t stop running until her feet were completely numb.
She sank down under a giant pine tree, panting hard, her body burning from the adrenaline and her lungs burning from the cold. She pressed the button on the phone, and her hopes sank.
Password? She laughed bitterly toward the sky. Of course, Shane would have a password on his damned cell phone.
“You fucking bastard!” He’d been such a miserable asshole that his own mate couldn’t wait to feast on his body and tear him to pieces.
Liv stared at the phone in her hand, feeling like she was being taunted by the universe. It even had reception bars. Four of them. All the way out in the middle of the damned…