Liv couldn’t believe how good he looked. Whole. Healthy. Strong. And his skin had a golden sheen like he’d been out sunbathing. The last time she’d seen him, he looked like a bloody corpse. “They gave you their water, didn’t they?”
He quickly moved to the cage door and began forcefully tugging on the rusty lock. “Yeah. I’m fairly certain that whatever’s in it makes them insane.” He blew out another breath. “I can’t open this—did you see who has the key or where they might’ve put it?”
“No.” She shook her head frantically. “I just woke up in here. Please, you have to get me out. They’re going to raffle me off or something.”
“No. They’re not going to give you away. They’re going to perform some gladiator-bullshit-fight-to-the-death ritual to determine who you belong to.”
Fight to the death?
“They can’t do this,” she seethed.
“They can and they will. Are you sure you didn’t see anything? A place they might’ve hidden the key?”
“No. Isn’t there something you can use to pick the lock?”
“I’m not a locksmith. I run a freighter company. I read P and Ls and invest money.”
Funny, he looked like one of them now. Not some high-profile, wealthy businessman.
“Please, Roen, do something,” she pleaded frantically.
His slightly full lips parted as if he were about to speak, but then he pushed them together. Liv was an expert of human observation. She’d logged over a thousand hours of watching people—their facial expressions, body language, changes in skin tone, and breathing patterns. If she were going to take a stab, she’d guess he was a man who was about to lose it. The pulse ticked away on his neck, the cords of muscles—damn, he had a lot of them—were stretched like tight rubber bands about to snap, and his eyes were sort of vacant, like an animal about to kill something.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He ran his strong hand through his short caramel brown hair and glanced at his bare feet. Yes, they were really, really nice feet. But this was not the time to be drooling over him despite the fact that every inch of him appeared to be perfect.
“No. I’m not foking okay,” he seethed. “These people are crazy, Liv. And I don’t mean a little weird or eccentric. They think this island is alive.”
“Alive. You’re joking.”
He shot her a look.
Oh God.
“That’s not all,” he said, his nostrils flaring and his chest heaving. “They think they’re mermen.”
“Mer. Men?” Liv wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly. “You mean…men who are half fish?” she asked.
Roen nodded while his eyes scanned the room. She assumed he was looking for something—anything to break the lock.
There was nothing. She’d been checking out the room for over an hour. And now she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry with this new bit of information. “These big, overgrown sacks of shit think they’re fish?”
“No. They think they’re descendants of some group of animals who crawled from the sea and eventually evolved into people. Only they say they’re not people.”
Liv knew her jaw was hanging open because she wanted to speak, but there were no words for the insanity she’d just heard.
Oh, God. This just keeps getting worse. “They told you this?”
“Yes. I spoke to one of them.”
“You. Have. To get. Me out. Of here.” She rattled the cage door.
There was a loud noise outside—men laughing and howling.
Roen looked at Liv with hard eyes. “If these people haven’t destroyed my phone, there can’t be more than a few minutes left on the battery.”
Her eyes teared up. “What are you saying?”
He rubbed his face, trying to hammer something out. “My crews are trained to follow strict protocol. When someone goes missing off one of my ships, they are to alert search and rescue. After twelve hours, they are to continue on course.”
“What does that mean, Roen?” she hissed, white knuckling the bars.
“It means that even if I got you out, there’s no point in running if there’s no one to get us off this island.”
No. No. No. “You’re going to leave me in this cage, aren’t you? You’re going to let them kill me. That healer man said they kill women.” Her words flowed in frantic desperation. “Haven’t you noticed, Roen? There are no women on this island! Not one! They sacrifice us or something. You can’t leave me here. You can’t!”
Roen held up his hand. “I’m not going to let them hurt you. Remember, you belong to me.”
She expected him to smile or indicate somehow he was joking, but he didn’t. And once again, Liv found herself wondering why the thought of belonging to him made her heart race so fast.
“What are you going to do?”
Roen squared his bare, broad shoulders and headed for the door.
“Roen!” She rattled the door, but he disappeared. Liv sank down, covering her face. This was madness. Pure madness. How could Roen just leave her like this? Was he going to look for a weapon or something? Because there wasn’t time.
Please, God. Please help me. God had never listened to her before. Nor had she to God. Hell, she didn’t even know if he or she existed. To her, God had always been just another word for the invisible energy that every particle in the universe contained, but miraculously produced everything we ate, touched, and felt—even love. She’d always felt intrigued by that. How can so much come from nothing? But right now, she prayed there was something bigger out there, because she needed help, and she wanted to live. She wanted to see her sisters again. And she’d give anything to watch her parents dancing at their fortieth wedding anniversary just a few months away. The entire family would be there, and Liv was supposed to give the speech. But if she didn’t make it through this, there would be no speech. No giant party—something her mother had been looking forward to for months. No celebration.
Just a funeral without a body. The thought of putting them through that broke her heart. She promised whoever—whatever was listening that she’d do something to repay the favor if she got out of this in one piece.
She felt a hard pinch on her arm and yelped. When she looked, there was no one there. Not a soul. This place is frigging creepy as hell.
CHAPTER EIGHT
From the confines of her narrow rusty cage, Liv stared at the twenty savage-looking strangers who filed inside the dank, dark, cavernous room and stripped away what little clothing they wore. Some were covered from the waist down, excluding their genitals—thank God—with those strange tribal fish-scale tattoos. Others had images of fierce sea creatures with claws and sharp teeth that snaked around their arms and legs or up their backs and chests. Some had nothing but lots of golden brown skin and huge—she gulped—everything. Well, they all had huge everythings, actually.
But now, given what she’d seen—culturally speaking, of course—and what Roen had told her, coupled with what she knew of tribal societies, these men fell more into the cult category. They were modern men who came to this island and believed it was some sort of god. Perhaps they believed it gave them powers, too, in exchange for ritual sacrifices and sexual acts. The possibility also existed that their water contained a potent concoction of some type of naturally occurring steroid and/or hallucinogenic, which would explain their enormous sizes and mass delusions.
Liv. Seriously? Does any of that matter right now? Because you’re about to watch them fight to the death. Naked. For you. She didn’t want to witness anyone dying, and certainly not for her. Afterwards, the nightmare would turn into a living hell because she was the prize, and God only knew what the winner would do to her. This wasn’t just frightening, it was ludicrous.
“Wait!” she screamed. “Just let me leave. Please!” Yet the men paid her zero attention, forming a line while a few hundred more men, equal in behemoth size, gathered around in a wide circle.
Liv cupped her hands over her fa
ce. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening. She rattled the cage door once again. “Let me the fuck go!” she screamed.
“Is there anyone else who wishes to place a claim on the female?” echoed a voice from somewhere inside the room. “Last call, gentlemen. L’isle will be here any moment to open the claiming, and she’s the only female any of us will see until the Collection.”
The room fell into an eerie silence.
“All right,” said the man. “Then let the claiming be—”
“I place my claim on her,” said a cold, confident voice that filled the entire room.
The man pushed his way through the crowd of nearly naked onlookers, who all wore either red or black cloth.
Roen. What the hell?
“No, Roen!” Liv yelled. “Don’t!”
One of the men laughed. “You? You wish to fight for the female?”
Roen pushed his way to the center of the room where she could see him, where everyone could see him. Had he lost his frigging marbles?
Roen slowly turned his body, making a circle, staring the men in the eyes. “Yes. But I won’t challenge these pieces of shit for her.” He then grinned with a sinister twitch in his lips that sent a spike of icy dread through Liv’s veins. Oh no. Oh no. What’s he going to do?
“Oh, really?” one of the men said. “Do you plan to just walk away with her?”
“I plan to challenge your leader.” Roen didn’t blink. “For control of the island.”
Liv gasped. This was Roen’s plan? For Christ’s sake, this wasn’t a hostile takeover of another shipping company. His money and stock options were no good here.
Roen was mad. Completely out of his billionaire head if he thought he could fight and win against the barbarian who would be their leader. Yes, Roen was large—about six and a half feet tall with lean, hard muscle—and growing larger since she first laid eyes on him this morning, but his domesticated physique was likely the result of a gym membership and personal trainer.
“Roen! No!” All Liv could think about was how she’d almost watched him die once today, and how badly she wanted him to live. In the short amount of time they’d known each other, she felt something for him that she hadn’t ever felt with anyone. It was weird and inexplicable, but who the hell cared? It was what it was. “Run, Roen. Just run!”
“What is this I hear?” said a booming voice near the doorway. Liv’s backbone tightened with fear, and the room’s temperature dropped ten degrees.
The sea of stone-cold-faced, shirtless men made a path for their leader as he passed. And holy shit. The man—with long brown hair and a beard to match, wearing nothing more than a suede skin around his waist—was at least a head taller than all the rest. Scars covered his tanned skin, and every inch of him flexed with rhino-sized muscles. He looked like the Grim Reaper masquerading in Conan the Barbarian’s skin. His fitness plan was probably killing people. Big people. Who disobeyed him.
Roen is going to die. I’m going to die.
“Did I hear someone wishes to challenge me?” From the edge of the circle surrounding Liv and the twenty naked men, their leader’s fiercely intimidating gaze swept the room.
Roen, who stared at the man, looked like he just might faint. Then, like he’d gotten over the shock, his disposition completely shifted. Legs apart, arms crossed, a defiant crazed look in his eyes.
No, Roen. Don’t do it. Just shut up. She prayed he’d come to his senses now that he’d seen the man he’d just challenged to a fight.
Roen stepped toward the leader, his neck and jaw pulsing with powerful, tense muscles. Something about Roen reminded her of a shark. A hungry great white shark with cold, soulless eyes.
Oh shit. He’s really going to do this.
The leader laughed and stepped forward, placing them several feet apart. “I haven’t torn off anyone’s head today, so I accept, little man. And I choose fists.”
Roen cracked his neck, his green eyes shimmering with a wicked death wish. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, brother.”
Brother? Had Roen meant that literally or figuratively?
“Please don’t, Roen,” Liv pleaded. “I’m not worth it.” She was worth it, but Roen dying for her wasn’t right. It wasn’t what she wanted.
Roen glanced at Liv. “Don’t forget what I told you, Liv. You’re mine.”
~ ~ ~
When Roen came to the obvious conclusion that his odds were significantly better challenging one man versus twenty, he still knew it was a huge risk. But what other options did he have? Walk away? Stay and watch? No. For whatever reason, this strange woman had gotten under his skin. And despite his inability to explain it, it was pointless pretending otherwise. He was in this now, and it was up to him to see this through to the bitter end—probably his bitter end.
Only now, there was a whole new issue. One that shook him so hard, he could’ve sworn his teeth had clacked.
Roen had expected someone tough, someone large to be these men’s leader. But Roen had not expected this: Lyle. His little brother, who’d supposedly died over fifteen years ago.
How had he gotten here?
Roen didn’t know. But Lyle didn’t seem to recognize him. And it wasn’t because Roen had changed. It was because something had clearly been done to Lyle, and Roen wasn’t referring to the fact that Lyle had grown a foot taller or put on a hundred bleedin’ pounds of muscle. The Lyle he knew growing up hated fighting, and he’d certainly never threaten to kill someone.
What am I going to do? Roen thought while trying to block out the sound of that goddamned war drum thumping away in the back of his mind, telling him how much he wanted Liv, how much he wanted to kill for her.
“You have some big balls to call me ‘brother,’” said Lyle. “Let’s see what words come from your mouth when I’m ripping out your tongue.”
Oh hell. Roen needed to win this fight, but killing his brother?
He needed a moment to think.
Roen cracked his neck again and grinned. “I meant brother as a term of endearment. Just as one might refer to their dog.”
A low rumble of chuckles erupted from the crowd. Lyle’s large chest shook with laughter. “I’m going to enjoy killing you, landlover.”
Roen dipped his head. “And if I win?”
Lyle raised his brows. “You? Win? Not likely. But if you would like to indulge us with your terms, we’re all ears.”
“If I win, the woman is mine and she goes home.”
The man flicked his thick wrist. “If you win, you’ll be the new leader and she is yours to claim and do with as you please—within the laws of the island, of course. But I wouldn’t count my chickens yet, little man. The island hasn’t asked me to step down.”
“Roen!” he heard Liv call out, but paid no attention. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. And the way she looked, freshly scrubbed body and wrapped up in white like a giant fuckable present, was a definite distraction.
Roen stepped in closer. “That’s because the island asked me to take you down.”
Lyle jerked back his head. “The island has spoken to you?”
It was a bluff, of course, but Roen knew that winning a fight always started with the mind—your own and your opponent’s.
He’s not your opponent. He’s your brother. And that meant the only way to truly win was to get Lyle to back down or back down himself.
You think they’ll let you walk away now? You’ve thrown out a challenge. Then what’s going to happen to Liv? There had to be a way out of this.
Roen nodded. “How the hell do you think I got here?”
“Like everyone else.”
“Yes, but not everyone who comes is a Doran. Not everyone here has a right to lead.”
“And so you are right,” Lyle said, removing the suede wrapped around his waist. “Shall we?”
The men stepped back and waited for Roen to remove the red sash.
“Can I ask one question before we begin?” Roen asked
.
Lyle laughed with a smug chuckle. “Of course. I am in a generous mood and would like nothing more than to grant your dying wish.”
The men around him roared with laughter.
“Do you know who you are—who you once were?”
“L’isle. I am called L’isle. Son of Cullan, same as you, Roen.”
Roen blinked. Cullan was his father’s name. “So you know I’m your brother?”
“These men,” his arms made a sweeping motion, “are my brothers. You are the useless, landlover offspring of my father.”
Roen felt a surge of unfathomable conflict. Lyle did remember him. But there was absolutely no way Lyle would ever want to fight him. Their relationship couldn’t have been any closer.
How close could you have been if Lyle let you believe he’d committed suicide? They’d never found the body, but the note said it all: he couldn’t be happy living like this anymore. Witnesses said they’d seen him jump into the ocean.
Roen suddenly felt a deep-seated rage. All these years he’d suffered from the loss of his brother. All these years. And here he was alive. Everything Roen had done—getting Lyle out of foster care once he turned eighteen, working two shitty jobs to support them both after their mom died, making sure Lyle had a safe home away from their father—none of that meant anything to Lyle. He’d just left and let Roen think he’d killed himself.
Why would he do this to me? Why would Lyle—
Lyle lunged and knocked Roen across the room, sending him hurtling into the damp stone walls. Roen felt his newly healed ribs crack on impact.
He fell to the floor, seeing a black cloud with flecks of bright light. Meanwhile, Liv’s cries echoed somewhere in the background of his mind. They were the same cries he’d heard earlier in the day when they’d beaten him within an inch of his life.
In that moment, lying there on the floor in agony, he realized that was why his feelings for Liv had so drastically changed. Earlier, she had attacked one of the men in an attempt to protect him. Him. A complete bastard who’d stopped doing anything for anyone after the loss of his brother. But Liv’s gesture had triggered something deep inside him. She had triggered something deep inside him.