Siren Misfit: The Misfits, #2

By Eve Langlais

Ever meet a mermaid terrified of the ocean? The closest I get to saltwater is in my bath.

As for singing? My siren heritage left me with a killer voice. Literally. Some people can charm animals out of trees. Me? They jump to their deaths rather than listen to another note.

I know I'm different. And I'm cool with it. What I'm not cool with is the meathead who decides that he's my fated mate. Just because he's tall, handsome, and muscle-bound doesn't mean I'm going to fall into bed with him. We might do it standing upright first.

Don't judge. I deserve a little fun, especially since I think my time on Earth is limited.

The nightmares are getting stronger. The mood swings nastier. The ocean is calling, but I don't think it wants to give me a gentle embrace.

Can a misfit who doesn't belong anywhere find a way to survive the future—and maybe even fall in love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eve Langlais
• Release date: Dec 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781773840420

Eve Langlais

New York Times and USA Today bestseller, Eve Langlais, is a Canadian romance author who is known for stories that combine quirky storylines, humor and passion.

Book preview

Introduction

Ever meet a mermaid terrified of the ocean? The closest I get to saltwater is in my bath.

As for singing? My siren heritage left me with a killer voice. Literally. Some people can charm animals out of trees. Me? They jump to their deaths rather than listen to another note.

I know I’m different. And I’m cool with it. What I’m not cool with is the meathead who decides that he’s my fated mate. Just because he’s tall, handsome, and muscle-bound doesn’t mean I’m going to fall into bed with him. We might do it standing upright first.

Don’t judge. I deserve a little fun, especially since I think my time on Earth is limited.

The nightmares are getting stronger. The mood swings nastier. The ocean is calling, but I don’t think it wants to give me a gentle embrace.

Can a misfit who doesn’t belong anywhere find a way to survive the future—and maybe even fall in love?

The Misfits

Prologue

Shh. My mother held my hand tightly and hushed the sound, her free arm rising to put a finger to her lips.

I didn’t need to be told. Fear kept my voice locked. This was our chance. An opportunity for a regular life. To be a real family. Mama—a name I could only use when we were alone—promised.

The power outage, which Mama blamed on maintenance, would help us play the hiding game. A game we had to keep secret, Mama explained with flashing fingers as she’d brushed my hair after my bath—the one with bubbles and not salty with fish. The people in the white coats kept asking if I understood what they said. Silly question. Fish didn’t talk. Waves did.

No waves in these concrete halls, the stone thick and muffling sound. No swimming for me tonight, which meant I didn’t have my pretty tail. I wore legs, which were much better for walking.

Walked right into my mother when she stopped.

The rigidness of her body had me freezing in fear. I held my breath. Don’t make a sound. The collar around my neck was a painful reminder of what happened if I used my voice out of turn.

Mama leaned around a corner and peeked. Her hands moved rapidly and silently with her message. Clear. Let’s move fast. I needed no urging as she tugged me after her down a hall I didn’t recognize. I’d never been so far from my room. Usually, my tasks—in the pools of water or in the small echoless room—were only a few paces from where I slept.

Soon, I’d see my first real sky. I’d observed it in picture books. Blue skies. Cloudy ones. Sunshine so bright it could hurt the eyes. I couldn’t wait. Couldn’t wait to see it all.

When Mama halted again, I ran into her back once more, the smell of her the same antiseptic as the doctors in the white jackets but also hinting of something sweeter and softer. The sweater I hugged at night carried that same scent and comforted me when my body ached after a rough day of tests.

Always with the tests.

Noticing that my mother didn’t move, I glanced around her body and saw what had her frozen. Outlined by light coming through a window in a door, stood a guard, his dark uniform distinguishing him from Dr. Keterson who stood next to him, not dressed in his usual white garb but recognizable by his thin features and thick-rimmed glasses.

Did you really think you could leave with her that easily? the doctor asked.

My mother’s voice quavered, the words guttural and almost accented compared to others. I never agreed to this.

You agreed to keep what happened here secret.

I listened as Dr. Keterson spoke, yet my eyes were on his hands uncapping the tip of a syringe.

I hated needles.

This is wrong, and you know it. I won’t be party to it.

You want to leave? The doctor stepped to the side and gestured to the door. You may depart anytime you like.

We both know I can’t just quit. You’ll kill me. The more my mother spoke, the stronger her voice became. As firm as her hugs.

Only if you open your mouth.

She comes with me, Mama declared.

It made me so warm to hear her challenging Dr. Keterson. He wasn’t a nice man. I sometimes dreamed of what I’d like to do to him. I didn’t tell Dr. Munroe, who asked me about my feelings. Mama said they wouldn’t understand if I did.

Anger made the collar buzz. I tried to avoid that.

But the power was down. The collar shouldn’t work.

I hoped. Because Mama yelled, Now, Lana. Sing. Sing loud.

But…

Now! she screamed, so I opened my mouth.

Only a mother could love the song that emerged from my mouth. Jarring. Ugly. Screeching and discordant. To others. To me, the notes were fascinating, and they felt so good when they hit the air.

Not everyone enjoyed my brand of music. Dr. Keterson screamed, Stop!

Mama smiled at me and signed, "It’s okay, precious one." Because she couldn’t hear me. Mama’s ears didn’t work like other people’s. She was deaf. She read my lips or my waving hands.

According to her, my mouth only sang of beauty. Not according to everyone else.

The soldier with the gun gasped, and his eyes went wide, while Dr. Keterson grunted.

Stop, I said. His words might have held more weight if he didn’t advance on me with the needle in hand.

My song became louder. The screams started. I shut my eyes as they died.

Kept them shut as Mama grabbed me up into her arms and carried me. Hurried me to freedom.

I would never be a prisoner again.

Chapter 1

I can’t believe I’m a prisoner. Which, in itself, was shitty. To make my day even worse, I also no longer found myself on Earth, but rather in Limbo.

You heard me right. I was currently trussed to a stake in Limbo, which actually existed. Nasty place, all gray ground—gray skies, and dire consequences. I’d found out about it the hard way when a demon dragged Claire—one of my bestest friends—and me there to use as bait.

Wondering what I’m talking about? Guess I should back up a bit.

My name is Lana Periwinkle. No middle name. And that last name? Totally made up because, for one thing, the men in the white coats were probably still looking for me. Even though it had been a while since my escape, I imagined they were still pissed they lost their mermaid.

No need to rub your eyes or run for some Q-tips. You heard me. I’m a mermaid. Kind of. As well as a siren. Again, only sort of.

I’m half mermaid and half siren—which, by the way, are two very different things contrary to what you’ve heard. Check out the Greek legends, you’ll see. Then again, it should be obvious.

A mermaid lives underwater. All the time. None of this growing-legs-and-walking-on-land shit when the air hits their skin. No handsome princes to sweep them away. A full-blooded mermaid needs water to live. Saltwater, to be precise.

A siren is a singer with an affinity for birds. They live only on land. No water for them.

I remember the first time I talked about it in college. People shook their heads and mocked me until I referred them to the almighty Google search and had them checking out ancient Greek legends about sirens. Mostly female, the males having disappeared from the historical references sometime around the fifteen hundreds. Rumors claim the women went cannibal on them—or they nagged them to death with their almighty voices. Whatever the case, sirens were female only, possibly part bird—no one had ever caught one to prove it—and deadly singers who liked to lure unsuspecting men to their doom. The ugly, useless ones, at least.

According to rumor, those who could work became part of a siren’s staff, serving her every need. While others—the hunky types with the perfect vee—were held captive and used as sex slaves. A hard life of being pleasured and milked of their seed until they grew too old or ugly.

Given the sirens’ enslavement of men was pretty widespread knowledge, you’d figure the islands where legends claimed the creatures haunted the shores would be given a wide berth. You’d be wrong. To this day, men still purposely sailed by the siren isles in hopes of being chosen, not giving a damn that their fellow shipmates often died in the process.

All this to say…sirens and mermaids were two utterly different things. Incompatible things, I might add. Because contrary to some monster romance movies, coitus between something that lives in water and something that hails on land just isn’t physically possible—especially since neither had males of their kind.

Yet, here I was. Half and half. A misfit who not only feared the ocean but could no longer muster a tail. I had to hold my breath underwater like everyone else, and I had the worst singing voice imaginable. I mean like throw-yourself-out-of-a-ten-story-window awful. When I lived with my grandma, I only sang in her church choir once. It was said, even the statue of Mary cried for me to stop.

When I was young, Grandma was convinced I had a speech impediment and was determined to fix it. Which meant I often had a mouthful of marbles to help me enunciate. I personally thought it made me sound worse. But at least people ceased crying whenever I laughed too hard.

Over time, it got so I could speak normally without rocks in my mouth—and people bursting into tears. But I avoided singing. If a great song played on the radio, I lip-synced. And even then, I could feel the music tingling in me, pushing and shoving for freedom. I worried that one day it would burst free and then…watch out. I’d knock ‘em dead. Literally.

Now you might wonder at this point, if I have a siren’s voice, why not visit a few of my kind? Find out how the whole thing works. How I could safely hum along to the radio without causing mass suicides to occur. Because, here’s the thing, it’s not just humans that are affected. We never had a mouse problem in any of the places I lived. Why did it work on only some animals, though? Cats, for example, usually sniffed with disdain when I tried humming to them. Dogs peed themselves with joy. Not exactly useful skills in the real world. How could I use my voice for good, like extra whipping cream at the coffee shop?

I wanted to know, but the people who could tell me wouldn’t talk. Sirens were a bitchy bunch. Total mean-girls club. Which, I might add, I’d fit into quite well. I never hid the fact that I could be quite bitchy. Although, I prefer the term firmly opinionated and unwilling to deal with bullshit.

Being a half-blood should have at least given me an audience. But not even a phone call was allowed. The sirens refused to talk to me. Claimed there was no way I could be related to them because, apparently, there were only like five of them left in the world, and none of them had given birth to me.

I already knew that none of them was my mama. I remembered her. The baby-powder scent of her deodorant. The way her hands flashed when she signed. I remembered her dying. Her eyes wide open as she…

Nope. Not going there.

Not going to see sirens either, which meant the only information I could glean about that half of myself was what I found via a Google search. None of it helpful.

Especially the part about the sirens’ diet being mostly seeds and fruit. Perhaps if I ever did manage a meeting, I should omit the fact that I might have eaten some distant relatives because I really, really loved crispy breaded chicken.

As for the mermaids, my other half? I’d never cannibalized any of my cousins. Mostly because I couldn’t abide fish. Scallops, though? Loved those tasty suckers. I also liked the fact that the mermaids weren’t jerks like the sirens. They, at least, agreed to speak with me, if—and that was a big if—I came to them. Underwater. Like we’re talking metric tons underwater.

The idea of all that liquid pressing down on