by Eve Langlais
Since we couldn’t speak underwater, I waved. No one waved back.
Fear began to vibrate inside me, especially as one mermaid approached, her movements graceful and yet menacing at the same time. It didn’t help that she came close enough her face almost pressed against mine.
Her lips never moved, but I heard her just the same. I heard her terrible voice. “You are not a mermaid.”
And as if her words held a command, I suddenly wasn’t.
Hundreds of feet under the water.
I opened my mouth to scream.
Water poured in.
And for the ten thousandth time, I drowned.
Chapter 7
My lungs wanted to burst. The pressure. It was too much. I need to reach the surface, but something held me down. I couldn’t get above water. I struggled, mouth gasping for air.
I couldn’t catch a breath. There was only water all around. Water inside my body.
I—
“Calm down,” a soothing voice commanded.
Calm? He wasn’t the one drowning.
“Breathe.”
Couldn’t he see I was trying?
“It was just a nightmare.”
Duh. That still didn’t dispel the very real feeling of water in my lungs. I would die in bed, a victim of a vivid hallucination.
Lips pressed against mine and blew. Startling.
Warm air rushed into my lungs, dissipating the phantom liquid, expanding my chest.
The mouth pulled away, and I expelled a breath before they pressed against mine again, this time, bringing a tingle.
A familiar tingle.
I opened my eyes and stared in shock at the behemoth giving me mouth to mouth.
Shoving at Jory’s body proved futile. Eventually, he did relinquish my mouth, but not before giving it a lick. A warm, wet lash that brought a very inappropriate shiver.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Saving you.”
“It was a nightmare. I would have woken up.” I think. Each time it got harder and harder to breathe, with this time being the hardest by far.
The corner of his lip pulled upward. “You could just say thank you.”
“Thank you for molesting me in my sleep?” I shoved at him, expecting him to force another kiss on me, but he moved away. Surely, that feeling wasn’t disappointment.
“You can be damned sure that if I were to touch you, you’d be awake for it. Begging.”
“You wish,” I snorted, even as his words brought more heat.
“Don’t need to wish. You’ll ask me to bed you.”
“And if I don’t?”
He didn’t reply, just offered me an enigmatic smile that made me want to jump him. Right now. I was in the perfect place given he loomed by the side of my bed. In my room. How did he get in my room?
I groaned. “Don’t tell me you broke the freakin’ door again.”
“Such language,” he chided.
“If you don’t like it, then go the fuck away. No one invited you here.”
“Never said it bothered me. It just reminds me of some people I know.”
People as in women? What women? Why did it bother me that he might be talking to women?
And again, what women? Would anyone notice if they suddenly disappeared?
Rather than go on a ridiculous jealous rampage over a guy I didn’t even like, I decided to be smarter and find out why he’d broken down my door again. “Why are you here? This’d better not be about your penis problems again.” I struggled in my sheets, only to freeze as I recalled a crucial point. Nakedness, to be precise.
My nakedness. I never slept in my clothes. I now kind of wished I did.
“It is somewhat related. But not in the way you might think.” Again, that sneaky smile.
The man was up to something. I glared. Hoping he’d leave.
He didn’t.
Fine then. I wrestled a bit more with my winding sheet and managed to fully flash him before straightening it out and wrapping it around me toga style.
Too late, though. Conan wasn’t the least bit a gentleman, and he stared at me during the whole thing. The awesome part was the effect my nudity had on him because, hello, that was either a large sock in his pants, or he was really happy to see me.
Feeling a little cockier, I pursed my lips. “Looks like everything is in working order.”
“Turns out I was mistaken about your curse.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I live here. I’m your new roommate.”
What?
A man couldn’t drop a bomb like that then saunter from my bedroom.
I struggled to get out of bed, got tangled, hit the floor, and flopped as I tried to free myself. When I finally wrestled free, I spent a moment shoving myself into a bra, a shirt, and panties along with track pants—my version of armor against his allure. I didn’t brush my hair, though. Or my teeth. Toothpaste and coffee didn’t mix well for me.
Stalking out into the main living area, I jabbed a finger in Conan’s direction. “Explain what you mean about being my roommate! I have a roommate.” Speaking of whom, where the heck was Claire?
I glanced around, looking for signs of her—or a struggle. Everything seemed in order. The gray sectional couch still in front of the television. The wide basin of water where I’d left it the night before. The garbage pail full of candy wrappers on the other end where Claire sat.
As for Conan, the door destroyer and now home invader, he stood in the kitchen, pulling items out of a large bag. A bag with the logo of my favorite coffee shop.
A dozen cups lined the edge of the counter along with several donut boxes. He pointed. “I brought breakfast.”
“For an army?” I sounded annoyed, but the truth was, the bribe worked its magic. I could feel those donuts calling me. Lana, eat me. I want you to eat me.
He smiled. It was much too nice a smile, wide and engaging. It did things to my dry panties that made them not so fresh anymore.
As for when he took a bite of a powdery pastry, my mouth watered just as hard. “Mmm,” he said with a deep groan. “You really should have one.”
I wanted to refuse. Really. I wanted nothing from this annoying man.
Nothing at all.
Then he licked the powder from his lips. So unfair. I wanted to be licking sweet sugar. Wanted to lick those lips.
Rather than give in to that temptation, I gave in to an easier one. I grabbed a donut and bit into it. Sweetness instantly hit my tongue. The raspberry inside, tart and delicious, filled me with joy. I had a few bites, then found myself guzzling the coffee, double cream and sugar washed it down like the purest of ambrosias.
The bringing of offerings did help my mood. A little. And he knew it. He looked so damned smug.
Not for long. I hummed as I ate another donut, this time one with a lemony center. I groaned. I moaned. I licked my lips, and he watched me. Watched as I had a mini food orgasm without him.
“You are an evil siren.” The low, rumbled words tickled my senses. No magic in them unless masculinity counted.
“I am, and you are trespassing again.”
“I have a key.” He pointed to a ring of them clipped at his belt. One of the keys a vibrant pink I recognized.
“That’s Beth’s.” My old roommate’s. “Give it back.” I held out my hand.
“Make me.”
The temptation to throw myself at him proved strong. It didn’t help that he moved closer.
I chugged coffee instead.
“What was your nightmare about?” he asked.
Talk about dousing me in cold water.
“None of your business.” I turned from him and grabbed another donut, barely tasting the blueberry inside it.
“You looked like you were drowning.”
“I was.”
“But there was no water.”
“Hence the nightmare part.”
He leaned against the counter, close to me. “Then why did
it feel like I grabbed you through some. I could smell it, too.”
I froze. “It’s not real.”
“Are you sure?”
Damn him, not anymore, I wasn’t. I’d thought the dreams stronger of late. Could they get strong enough to manifest in real life?
That would suck. I turned to pastries for consolation. I let the sugar transport me back to my happy place. One where there wasn’t an ocean trying to kill me.
The rapping against the window only slightly penetrated my forced blissful bubble.
The rapid staccato of something hard against glass popped that candy coma climax. I whirled and glared at the bird sitting on the sill, banging its beak, daring to disrupt my peace.
“Someone hand me a BB gun.” I had a solution for the dirty pigeon that seemed determined to give itself a concussion.
“You would shoot a message carrier?” Conan sounded shocked. “But they are sacrosanct.”
“If that means annoying, then yes, they are.”
“It means they are protected.”
“By who?” A bigger bird? Imagine how many people I could feed for Thanksgiving if I netted a twenty-pounder.
“They are protected by the governing laws.”
“Are you talking about bylaws? Because those only apply if you’re caught.” I moved from the stool towards the window, wondering if it would fly away if I threw up the sash. If it got inside the apartment, it might cause damage. I’d seen the AFV videos with the squirrel.
He blinked at me, and for a man with dirty-blond hair, his lashes were ridiculously thick and long. Kind of like the rest of him.
Splash.
I pressed my legs tightly together. “I am getting the impression we’re discussing two different things.”
“The laws I speak of are for anyone considered non-human.” Which sounded kind of racist—speciesist?—until you recalled the part where humans had a tendency to kill what they didn’t understand. Just ask the witches of Salem.
“Who makes the laws?”
“The Council of Origin.”
My turn for a blank stare.
His turned incredulous. “You don’t know of the council?”
“What if I said only vaguely?” Because here was the thing, I had been raised by humans. First my mother, who couldn’t swim at all or hold a tune. Then my grandma—a foster mother who adopted me after that first year in her care—who was more American than apple pie. Never knew my father. Not even his name.
Never learned anything about my mermaid or siren side growing up. My grandma did her best to cure me of the idea that I was anything but an imaginative little girl.
Not her fault. I wouldn’t have believed me either. It was not as if I could show her my tail. I’d lost that ability. Some days, I wondered if I deluded myself.
However, even Grandma couldn’t deny how my voice affected people. She’d explained away the fact that I could kill the birds in the eaves of our front porch when I hummed on my being tone deaf. I couldn’t sing, and so she forbade me from trying. And if I raised my voice in irritation? Grandma waved that wooden spoon.
Before you think she was some mean old lady beating on a kid, stop right there. Grandma was loving. Kind. The type of grandma who had hot cookies and a cold glass of milk when I ran home from school sniffling because the kids had made fun of my green hair again. As she would dye it for the third time in a month, Grandma explained that it was some kind of hormonal reaction to tap water.
All this rambling to explain that I knew fuck all when it came to non-humans. And I’d certainly never learned about any laws. Cryptids were very tight-fisted with their information.
The mermaids never even acknowledged my existence until I did a blood test and a sorceress on the east side of the city confirmed it. Those vile concoctions they show in the movies, the kind where a witch mixes all kinds of gross stuff until it smokes and glows? Just as nasty-tasting as you’d expect. Gag-worthy.
However, knowing you were right didn’t give you over twenty years of history and explanation. At this point in my life, I knew cryptids existed with my DNA a half and half mix of two types: siren and mermaid. Not one or the other, which meant my own kind shunned me.
Was it any wonder that I clung so tightly to my friendship with Claire—cast out for being a lone bunny amidst wolves?
And Beth, someone with the kind of childhood you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. I was so happy she’d finally turned a corner in her life where she could be happy. Loved. Unafraid.
I envied Beth. I was also jealous of the damned bird Conan flirted with in the window.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough that I had to let the cooing creature live, but I had to watch a hunk of a man capture it in his big hands—big enough to do so many delicious things—and cradle the feathery body, too. He stroked a thumb over the back of the bird’s head. The slut preened at his touch and cooed some more. I had a recipe for Cornish hen that would easily adapt to pigeon.
Rather than wring its feathery neck, Conan bent his head and listened to the sounds it made.
I ate another donut as I mentally catalogued the spices in my cabinet. Alas, I wouldn’t be having roasted fowl this evening. The man placed his cupped hands outside and released the pigeon. It hopped from the ledge and flew off.
Only then did I say, “Okay, Dr. Doolittle, what did the birdie say?”
“How would I know? It’s a pigeon. Pigeons don’t talk.”
But… I stared at him, and he grinned.
“I did, however, grab the missive on its leg.” He held up, I kid you not, a tiny scroll.
“Are you fucking shitting me?” My language? Also a gift from Grandma. She cooked a sweet cake but cursed like the most afflicted sailor. I had loved the look on people’s faces the first time the chubby little old lady in the pink cardigan cussed them out.
“I will grant that the method is rather old-fashioned.”
“Ya think?” The sarcasm proved strong in me today.
“Only a few of the elder races use this method. They reject the new technologies for communication. They think them unsecure.”
“Because a note tied to a bird’s leg is so foolproof.”
“Would you like me to read the missive? Or would you prefer to continue disparaging everything around you?”
Was that his polite way of calling me a whiny bitch? He might have a point. “Sorry. I haven’t had my morning soak yet.” Of late, my mermaid side was being an attention whore. Constantly wanting water, heavy on the brine. The longer I waited to indulge it, the more PMS-like I got.
“You are feeling unwell?” His brow crinkled. The man appeared perturbed by the thought.
“Nothing a salt bath won’t fix.”
“You require a bath? I can help you with that.” The smile he shot me? Pure evil. The kind that promised things to my pussy that gave me a happy quiver that even a donut couldn’t manage.
“Keep it in your pants, Conan.” Because even dressed in jeans and a shirt, there was something untamed and wild about the man. Dangerous.
Just the type I usually avoided.
“If you insist. Your loss.” He unrolled the parchment and spent a moment reading it. His expression told me nothing.
At all. Nor did he read anything aloud.
Leaving me waiting.
I wasn’t very good at waiting.
He rolled it up without saying a word and slipped it into his pocket.
I waited some more.
He wandered back into the kitchen and grabbed another donut. Since there was more than even I could eat, I allowed it.
And, still, he said nothing.
My patience snapped. “Well? What did it say? Or even better, let me read it for myself.” I held out my hand.
He ignored it and kept chewing.
Narrowing my gaze, I asked again. “What does the note say?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I live here.”
“Do you read your other ro
ommate’s mail?”
“Actually, I do.” I did my best to keep Claire from freaking out. Since those letters from her family used to cause paper bag-worthy panic attacks, Beth and I had begun intercepting them. At Claire’s request, I might add. We kept them in a shoebox. They had a return address in case we ever needed to hunt down the asshole who’d put that fearful look in our friend’s eye.
“If you wanted to read it, then you should have intercepted it before I did.”
“I was going to until you beat me to it.”
“You wanted to kill the messenger.”
“Kill sounds so harsh. Baste him in spices and eat him for dinner with a salad is more like it.”
“Still not convincing me to tell you.”
“How about because I said so?”
“Make me.” He had finished his donut and crossed his arms over his chest. Smug, male arrogance.
So fucking hot.
Also, really damned annoying.
I wanted to dive off the stool, over the counter, and totally scream in his face. I knew he expected me to do it. As if I’d be predictable.
I was done being pathetic and whiny. If he wanted to keep it a secret, then let him. See if I cared.
“Fine. Don’t tell me. It’s obviously not a message for me.” I didn’t know anyone who communicated by carrier pigeon.
I began to walk away. There might have been a slight twitch to my hips. I made it to the bathroom before he teased me, “The message was for you.”
Say what? I might have stumbled to a stop. “From who?”
“I thought you didn’t care.”
Damn him. I didn’t want to. “Whatever. If it’s important, they’ll call.”
“No, they won’t.”
I whirled. “Stop playing games.”
“Kiss me.”
“What?”
“One kiss, and I’ll tell you.”
No one could blame the suspicion I eyed him with. “This is blackmail.” Yet, since when did blackmail make my body quiver and yearn for the thing he demanded. “You can’t make me.”
“No one is making you do anything. Think of this as a negotiation. I have something you want.”
“How do I know it’s worth a kiss?” I shook my head. Why was I even contemplating it? “Nope. Don’t care. No kisses for you, Conan.” The only action I’d be getting would involve batteries. I turned away, only to freeze when he spoke up.