MERCILESS (The Mermen Trilogy #3) by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff Page B

a deep groggy voice.
    Liv blinked at him and smiled, the joy in her heart too overwhelming for words. She felt like running and throwing herself over him and doing very, very naughty things—things they’d yet to do. But he was in no condition for that. Still, she wanted him so badly it hurt.
    “Stand here and stare.”
    He cracked open one gorgeous hazel-and-green eye. “Then I’ll have to get up for my kiss.” He started peeling away the blanket.
    “Don’t you dare move.” She walked over and kneeled beside him, touching his forehead, careful not to show her true emotions on her sleeve. “How do you feel?”
    “Alive. Alive and grateful to see you here with me.” He smiled, and it was the most gorgeous smile she’d ever seen him make, despite his heart-stopping dimples being masked by a short brown beard.
    She reached for his bandage and lifted up one edge. The skin underneath was bright pink, but the missing chunk of his shoulder was growing in. More importantly, the bleeding had stopped. “It’s almost healed. Do you have any idea why you’re all sick?”
    He shook his head. “At first I wondered if we were all going to turn into some sort of monster, but now it’s fairly obvious we were all dying. I wonder if…” He winced as he moved a little on the bed. “I wonder if the water is a lifetime commitment.”
    No. Fuck no. “You think that’s why you’re all sick?”
    “I don’t know. But if it heals us and keeps us alive longer, would it be so strange that there’s a reverse effect once we cease to take it?”
    Liv hung her head. So they were addicted in a sense. And if the island fed off of them—their…energy…or life force…or whatever corny New Age word she was supposed to call it, then there was no way to break this cycle.
    Great. It’s like email spam. No matter what they did, the crap just kept on coming.
    That led her back to her biggest question yet: what did the island really want? If she was weakening and starving, then why wasn’t Crazy Dirt forcing her hand and simply demanding the men give her what she wanted: their allegiance and for them to let her back in. Or re-bond or whatever-the-mer-hell they called it.
    Liv started pulling her hand away, and he caught it. “Where did you get the water, Liv?” he said, sounding very displeased.
    She looked away. “I think you know the answer to that.”
    “Then let me ask another way: What did you trade for it?”
    “Nothing,” she lied—yes, right to his face. What else could she tell him? That she’d be dead soon, like the elders in that pool? “The island is probably going to be overrun by crazy treasure hunters soon. I guess she found the strength to make some water for you.”
    “You’re lying. I can see it in your eyes,” Roen growled.
    “Roen, you have to trust me; I’m doing what I have to.”
    He gave her a look, slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her to his mouth. His lips were warm and soft, but his short beard was rough and deliciously masculine.
    She sighed with ecstasy. There was so much emotion in his kiss that it went straight to her heart and made it swell.
    She quickly pulled away from him before she completely lost all control of her emotions. She was just so damned grateful to see him again—breathing, smiling, alive.
    “Roen, how did you survive? Shane said you’d drowned at sea.” She’d assumed it happened during this thing they called the “Great Swim” a two-thousand-mile race in the ocean. The winner would get control of the island. The loser would be executed if they’d not died already. But Shane never completed the race because he’d decided to take Liv on “vacay” and expected Roen to die—the man was not a great swimmer. So ironic, given he was a merman.
    “I nearly drowned, but a maid came to my rescue. She told me how to break the connection with the island, and when I figured out that I could help the men with this information, I turned around. She carried me most of