by TJ Nichols
Table of Contents
Blurb
Prologue
Previously….
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
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Copyright
Greed and Other Dangers
By TJ Nichols
Mytho: Book Two
Dragon shifter Edra has always lived to serve and protect—in ages past as a knight, and in the modern world as a mytho liaison to the San Francisco PD. Behind the scenes he safeguards the mythos community from scandal—and further human hatred. When the eggs of a rare greater dragon are stolen, Edra must find and return them before the mother razes the city.
Edra’s partner, Jordan, has just been promoted, and he’s on the trail of several stolen mythos artifacts. Together, they track the eggs to a colony of mermaids living in the bay near Alcatraz Island.
But trying to separate a mermaid from her treasure is asking for trouble.
As Edra and Jordan grow closer, they test the bounds of human-mythos relationships. But Jordan isn’t ready to mate for life, and Edra won’t pretend to be human for Jordan’s friends. With the hills on fire and a storm brewing in the bay—and in their bed—something’s got to give.
Prologue
WHEN HUMANS first started to experiment with the Large Hadron Collider, it was predicted that black holes would swallow the world, but it never happened. In fact, for the first few years, nothing transpired in the human world that would prepare people for what was to come.
During the human experiments, the mytho world of Tariko was racked by earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Even the gods, usually more concerned with their own pleasures and petty squabbles, started to wonder if it was the end of days. Emissaries were sent through the standing stones to visit the human world, which they had ceased to frequent thousands of years before.
What they found had changed completely. It was no longer the same place that was talked about in myth, and it was no safe haven.
No one in Tariko was ready for the destruction.
No one knew what had happened. The human scientists saw the readings and knew something major had occurred, but it was only when they stepped out of their labs and saw dragons in the air that they began to understand.
They had collapsed another world into their own.
The creatures people had thought were myth had become very real.
Many humans and many mythos died that day as buildings fell and new buildings from Tariko sprang up like mushrooms. Others died in the skirmishes that followed. Martial law was declared in many countries, and some countries set out to exterminate all mythos.
The US created internment camps for the mythos and separated them from humans for everyone’s safety, and the UN declared the mythos were refugees. The collider was shut down. No one wanted more worlds to collapse, or worse, for the human world to collapse into somewhere else.
But which mythos were animals and which should be afforded the same status as humans? There was a simple “talk test,” though many humans felt that satyrs and mermaids were still animals, even though they could speak. The worst humans thought that all mythos were animals and should be returned to mythological status. Hunting mythos for trophies became popular and profitable.
While the humans debated what to do with them, the mythos grieved for their lost home, their lost families, and their lost culture and magic. The collapse affected each species differently. Vampires became ugly and werewolves became trapped midshift—part human and part wolf. Mermaids remained as spiteful as ever.
Gradually the governments of some countries established Mythological Services to help mythos integrate. The idea spread from Europe and is now being tested in several US cities.
In the ten years since the collapse, those who can pass as human at first glance are more accepted and the mythos have tried to hold the balance between being too insular and too open.
Mythological Services helps mythos with housing, education, and work, and occasionally steps in when mythos run up against human police who don’t understand or don’t care.
Copying the European model, the state of California is encouraging police departments to have a contact at Mythological Services—a mytho liaison officer who can help the police in cases that involve mythos.
It’s a good idea on paper.
Previously….
INSPECTOR JORDAN Kells had been hiding his Bliss use from his friends and colleagues because humans are forbidden to use mytho drugs. Bliss addiction is meant to be impossible, but Jordan has started to crave Bliss more frequently.
While working on mytho-related cases, he met Edra Tendric. Edra was the new mytho liaison officer. Officially he was supposed to liaise with the SFPD. Unofficially he covers up mytho crimes and polices the mythos, solving problems before they become an issue for the cops. He wants crimes against mythos to be taken seriously and in Jordan, he believed he’d found a cop he could trust. More than that, he found someone he’s attracted to at a much deeper level—a man who could be his mate.
The attraction was shared by Jordan, even though he knew dating a mytho would only damage his career. But Edra passes for human, and he also brings Jordan the Bliss he craves. Although Bliss is a poor substitute for what Jordan really wants, which is Edra in his bed.
Lesser dragons don’t fall into bed with just anyone. For them it’s one night or forever, and Edra wanted forever with Jordan. For Jordan that meant waiting, learning that Edra doesn’t kiss casually, and that dragons mate for life. It was a lot to take in, and given his poor track record with relationships, Jordan wasn’t sure he was ready to be a dragon’s mate.
With the mayoral election looming, Jordan was under pressure to solve a murder case and pin the crime on the mythos—a satyr drug deal or a mating ritual gone bad. But that wasn’t where the evidence led.
Together they solved the murder of a satyr, and Jordan found a welcome he didn’t expect in the mytho community. He’s started to enjoy working with the mythos, a job few cops want.
When the killer of the satyr was revealed to be human—and connected to the mayor—Jordan was put on leave. Edra knew the killer would never be charged, so he enlisted the help of the mermaids. He gave them a photo of the man responsible and trusted they would drown him at an opportune moment.
A new, pro-mytho mayor was elected, and the mytho community breathed a sigh of relief.
And Edra gave in to temptation and kissed Jordan.
Chapter 1
THE HEAT was almost unbearable, even for him, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The smoke was hot and acrid, so thick he could barely see. Tears blurred his vision and trickled over his scales. Edra Tendric let the current of air buffet him upward.
Another water bomber made its labored way closer. The blades of the helicopter sliced through the air. If Edra was careless, they would slice through him. That small amount of water wouldn’
t be enough. The fire that had burned through the hills near San Francisco for the last two days was spreading and swallowing vast tracts of trees and towns.
Somewhere down there was the dragons’ nest… and a dragon.
The female of the breeding pair had finally given up the location, but the fire had been too intense for Edra to even attempt to get in there earlier, and the human firefighters didn’t want dragons of any type cluttering up their airspace.
But they could only prosecute what they could see, and for the moment, Edra’s invisibility was holding. The smoke thinned, and he saw a burned-out area that in no way resembled a dragons’ nest, but there was a great green dragon in the center.
There were few enough greater dragons in the world. Most had died during the collapse of Tariko into the human world, and if the male was dead, then it was unlikely the female would breed again. That would be a huge loss, as well as a personal failure. It was Edra’s job to protect the dragons.
Edra circled downward and the heat filled his lungs, stealing the air he needed to breathe. He didn’t know how human firefighters managed. Their delicate bodies weren’t made for these temperatures. He was a lesser dragon and he was still struggling.
The female of the pair was being cared for at the satyr temple in the Presidio. She’d fled the nest, injured, but hadn’t said what had happened except that her mate was still there. But her mate wasn’t moving.
Edra’s heart sank.
The fire roared around him. If it shifted direction and swept back this way, he wouldn’t survive the flames. He could hold fire in his hand, but not for long. Not even a greater dragon could survive forever in these conditions.
Carefully he landed. The ground was hot, but not unbearable. His claws dug into the ash as he cautiously approached. If the male wasn’t dead, it was quite possible he was so badly injured he’d lash out instead of accepting help.
Greater dragons were glorious in flight and fierce in a fight, but not much smarter than Jordan’s pet cat. At least the dragons talked to him. The cat just hissed and stalked off as though it owned the apartment. She was such a bitch he didn’t even want to eat her—he’d probably choke on her attitude.
“I’m here to help,” Edra said in dragon, the clicks falling off his tongue as though he spoke their language every day.
He edged closer, not sure if the male was even breathing. There were long raw gouges down his flank. That fit with what the female had said—that they’d been attacked. The end of his tail was missing, and an ear was torn. She said they’d been attacked by humans, but the injuries looked more like the result of a dragon fight.
The layer of ash thickened as Edra got closer. The remains of the nest?
“Can you move?” he kept talking, shouting over the noise of the fire.
The male didn’t respond, but Edra was sure he saw an eyelid twitch. There was no way he could lift this dragon out of there on his own.
Edra roared. The male opened his eyes and snarled back.
Shit, he was still invisible. Edra shivered and his skin lost the silvery glow. Now he was just plain silver and about a quarter of the size of the wounded male. His scales wouldn’t do squat against the claws of a greater dragon. Dragons were armored like a military tank, and he was more of what the humans called a soft-top SUV. But the male didn’t move. That wasn’t a good sign. He should be defending what was left of his nest.
“We need to leave. Your mate sent me to help.” He would’ve come anyway when he realized something was wrong. Somehow he’d failed to notice the male dragon hadn’t fled the fire until it was too late. He didn’t know what had happened, but he’d find out.
“I can’t leave.”
“You have to.” No one would be able to get in and help the dragon until the fire had been tamed. That was going to take weeks, and even dragons needed water.
The male lifted a wing. A pearly black gleam was revealed. “Last egg.”
Oh, selkie shit. The female hadn’t mentioned eggs. Wait. “Last?”
“Taken. Broken.” He licked the egg.
“Can I look? Fix?” As long as the egg wasn’t badly damaged, it could still survive. Was the male sitting on a dead egg? Protecting it with his life instead of fleeing? Dragons had been known to stay with an egg long after it should’ve hatched. There was nothing sadder than a hopeful dragon slowly starving to death. Edra had known this pair of dragons for decades, and he couldn’t let that happen.
The dragon watched him and then shifted a little, giving Edra permission to approach.
When he’d slunk out of Jordan’s apartment at three in the morning, he hadn’t planned on ending up in the middle of a bushfire with a cranky, wounded dragon. If the female hadn’t landed in the Presidio and caused a scene—by eating a dog, collar and all, much to the owner’s horror—he could’ve been sipping hot chocolate with Jordan and pretending that they were merely colleagues forced to work together by the SFPD and their newly formed mytho branch of the SID. So far it had all been goodwill and little action. The same old barriers still existed, but Jordan could now officially beat his head against them without getting reprimanded.
That Edra wasn’t the only one now feeling frustrated at every turn gave him a rather unflattering smug sense of satisfaction.
The dragon watched him with one dark eye. Edra had the feeling the male was resigned to staying. This was his nest, and he wasn’t leaving.
Edra kept up the slow creep closer, even though his body temperature was rising. He was panting, unable to sweat in this form. He chose not to look at the towering flames that would cook him before killing him. There were downsides to being fire-resistant. Had the male sat on the nest as the flames ripped through?
He was close enough now to smell the pickled onion scent of dragons over the charcoal and ash. Beneath the male, the egg glistened, but Edra could see the crack in the thick shell. If it went the full depth, there would be no saving the egg or the hatchling inside.
“How many were there?”
The dragon stared at him. They weren’t known for their ability to count. Some smart ones could count to five. The male looked at his claws. He lifted three. “They took two, this one rolled away, but I saved it. She was angry.”
“Did she hurt you?” If the male had failed to guard the nest, it was possible his mate had lashed out.
“Humans.” If the dragons were telling the same story, there wasn’t much Edra could do. Just because they couldn’t count didn’t mean they couldn’t lie. Edra would have to work out how humans had found the nest and stole the eggs.
A tree fell and sent sparks showering over them both. Edra flinched at the burn. He wasn’t going to last much longer. He’d seen what happened to eyeballs when they got too hot, and he didn’t want his brain getting broiled in his own spinal fluid either. He edged in closer to look at the egg. It was about two feet long and more of an oblong than egg shaped.
There was a clear crack running up the side. It took a lot to break a dragon egg, but that was a question for another, cooler time. The male extended his wing over Edra, and he was sure the temperature dropped a few degrees. The egg was probably too damaged to be viable, but he couldn’t say that or the dragon would never leave the nest. Edra gave the egg a nudge and it didn’t fall apart—a good sign. But he wouldn’t be able to fly out of there carrying the egg. For one thing, he had no arms—they were his wings. And he wouldn’t be able to carry it with his feet. The egg was too big.
Dragon eggs weren’t meant to be moved. They were meant to stay in the nest and be kept nice and warm.
The female had denied starting the fire, but when word got out that the dragons had been nesting and the nest had been attacked, it was going to look bad. Edra bit back a sigh. He could deal with that later.
“Can you fly?” Or was the male too dehydrated? Edra felt he could drink about a gallon of water and still feel parched. His tongue was thick in his mouth and ash clung to the back of his throat. Were his eyeballs already cook
ing at a gentle simmer?
“Must stay with egg.”
“You will. I’ll carry the egg while you fly.” The only downside to his plan was that he’d have to shift back to human form, and a naked human wouldn’t last long in these conditions. “And you’ll carry me.”
The male twisted around to look at him. “My nest.”
“Is gone. You can make a new one and look after your egg there. I’ll look for the other two. If you stay, you’ll die. No more eggs.”
The dragon danced his feet, sending up a cloud of ash, as he fretted.
Moving went against every instinct. Edra had never nested an egg, but he understood the deep reluctance to move. That same urge was in his bones, though it would never happen given that he generally preferred men and his… mate in waiting… was human.
“Can’t.”
“Yes you can. She’s waiting for you.” That she was cranky was an important detail to leave out, though he understood her anger had been fueled by fear for her eggs.
The male licked the egg. “Getting hot.”
“It is. The egg needs to be moved.”
The male closed his eyes.
“You don’t have to fly far, just out of the fire.” And high enough that Edra wouldn’t burn his naked human ass.
The male nodded.
Edra swallowed. “I’m going to shift. Be ready.”
Cocooned under the male’s wing, Edra let the cold rush over his skin. Tendons snapped as his bones reconfigured, and heat assaulted him immediately. His eyelids were sweating. He was already too hot. He picked up the egg, knowing if he dropped it, the best he could hope for was being eaten in a single bite. The other alternative was much messier, and he’d seen it done once when he was a hatchling after an elf had stolen an egg. He hadn’t realized a person could be torn up into such small pieces before dying.
The egg was hot and heavy as he cradled it to his chest. He grabbed the dragon’s rear leg and hoped that all three of them cleared the fire. Then the dragon launched up. Edra curled around the egg as though it were his own. It was the first clutch hatched in the human world in centuries. This baby had to survive.
