Greed and Other Dangers

by TJ Nichols

  They left but the crowd didn’t.

  Reporters were there filming, trying to get his attention, but he went back to Edra. “Move to the other side of the truck so you’re out of sight.”

  He nodded and didn’t argue. The blanket wasn’t doing the greatest job at protecting what little modesty Edra had. He leaned against the truck, egg cradled in his arms, hidden by the blanket, the male dragon at his side.

  “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “First dragon nesting since the collapse. First dragon to be hatched here in centuries.” He was almost smiling, holding that egg as though it were his own. Then the smile faded. “And someone knew and stole the other eggs. We have to find the eggs before the babies die.”

  Chapter 3

  EDRA GOT into Jordan’s car. The cheap shorts they’d bought were a little big but were better than nothing. His ass was tender as he sat, and he’d drunk enough water that his stomach sloshed alarmingly with each step. The sandwich had barely been a mouthful that he hadn’t bothered to chew to give the illusion of being human. Carly should’ve known that flying took energy. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as he picked at the superglue stuck to the side of his thumb.

  One egg returned to the nest. Whether it was all fine inside remained to be seen. An ogre had been called to treat the dragon, and a vet from the zoo was keen to help out. After relaying conversations between the dragons and humans all morning, he wanted to sleep.

  Jordan shut the door. “Are you sure you want to go to work?”

  “No. But I have paperwork.”

  So much paperwork. Mytho Servo was going to be in trouble for damaging the fire truck, which meant he’d be invited into Ardel’s office to explain. Vampires had the whole restrained anger thing perfected, and when they let go, it was too late to run.

  “Yeah.” The key snicked into the ignition. “Do you want to go to the hospital or something?”

  “No. The burns will heal once I have a rest and a proper feed. Just drive. I’m sure I’ll be stopping around your office later today about the eggs.” Taking eggs was a death-penalty offense, or it had been in Tariko. Here? He didn’t know. He opened his eyes and studied Jordan. “Will you be involved in the kidnap case?”

  Jordan kept his gaze forward as he eased through the dragon-watching crowd. Edra had already warned him that if they got close, they would be eaten or cremated. While they were like giant scaly cats, dragons guarded their nests fiercely.

  “Kidnap?”

  “At least two dragon eggs have been taken.”

  Jordan frowned, pressed on the horn, and cursed under his breath. “Y’all better get the fuck out of my way. My patience is thin.” He glanced at Edra. “I don’t know that it’s kidnapping.”

  “But kids were taken.”

  Jordan glanced at him. “Dragons, greater dragons, are animals?”

  “They can talk.” No better than the average three-year-old, but they could still talk.

  “So can dolphins, apparently.” He blew out a breath. “It’s definitely theft of endangered animal eggs. That’s a crime. Selling them on the black market is illegal. Is that what you think will happen to them?”

  “Well it’s not a dragon feud, because no other greater dragons have flown in.” There weren’t enough of them to be fighting over territory and stealing young.

  “And before? Did eggs get stolen?”

  “By enemies wanting to weaken the city’s protection. I never dealt with a case, but I’ve heard of them.”

  “Tell me about the eggs. How long until they hatch?”

  “I don’t know. Dragons aren’t very good with time and counting.” Or anything abstract. “They usually take two months to hatch. They have to be kept warm. The male will sit on them, breathe on them.”

  “Start a fire in the hills?”

  Edra didn’t answer. He’d had the same thought. The dragon had created the fire most likely in defense. “It was probably started when they were attacked. I did question them. You got the same answers as me.”

  “I’ll get the cyber guys looking for the eggs on the black market. Could someone want their own dragon?”

  “If they don’t know how to keep it alive, they’ll have wasted their money.”

  Jordan was silent as he turned a corner and then stopped at the lights. “Could the thief be mytho?”

  Edra wanted to be able to say no, but he couldn’t. “If someone wanted to set up their own city, they might take them, but the hatchlings would need new territory in a few years anyway.”

  “So why rush?”

  “Exactly. But it’s a possibility.”

  “If they were stolen when the fire started two days ago, they could be anywhere.” Jordan parked in front of Mytho Servo. There were still a few hard-core protesters, but most had given up over the last couple of weeks. The new mayor had made it very clear that anti-mytho harassment wouldn’t be tolerated. While there’d been celebrations in Mytho Servo, so far not a lot had changed. Mythos still struggled with housing and education and employment as well as all the same biases. The only difference was that the mayor didn’t encourage the hate. But humans in positions of limited power still had unofficial discrimination policies.

  Edra hesitated before getting out. He needed to ask a favor without it sounding like one. If the dragons were blamed for the fire, people might not want them near the city, even though it was their territory. “It might be best if we don’t mention how the fire started. It could’ve been lit by the thief.”

  Jordan turned. He was silent for several heartbeats, but Edra could see the calculations go through his head as clearly as if they were written on his face. He was a cop. He wasn’t mytho. And while he had a better grasp on mythos than most humans, he was still human, and if push came to bite, Edra was sure he’d side with humans. He looked away first, not wanting to see it in Jordan’s eyes.

  “It will be hard to find the cause, and without evidence, it would be careless to assign blame.” Jordan’s words were carefully measured. “But it would be equally careless to ignore the most obvious answer with the intention to mislead.”

  Edra nodded. They’d never discussed everything Edra did at Mytho Servo, but he was sure Jordan suspected and didn’t want to know. Couldn’t know. “Greater dragons have been killed in other countries. I have to protect them. Now they’re breeding. If people get the idea to steal eggs—”

  “Someone has already had that idea. If they’re being sold, there might already be a buyer. Things like that are often ordered by the buyer.”

  “Are mythos being ordered?”

  “Not as a whole. I thought Darian’s dick might have ended up online.”

  Edra’s stomach hollowed at the thought of mytho body parts for sale for the highest bidder because they thought there might still be some magic in them. Darian’s missing part had been found by a mermaid. It had been a hate crime, not money driven, but that hadn’t eased his family’s pain at losing their son.

  Jordan put his hand on Edra’s thigh. “We’ll find the eggs.”

  It would be nice to be able to believe him, but it was hard to put his faith in a human cop. “How many people work in Mytho SID?” Jordan glanced down. So, just him. Edra softened his voice. They rarely talked work beyond shared cases. “How is it going?”

  Since Jordan had been reinstated and the new department created, they’d both been busy, but the lure to end up tangled on Jordan’s sofa was one that was getting harder to resist. When he was there, they talked about other things or they didn’t talk at all as Jordan Blissed and Edra thought about all the things he wanted to do when Jordan became his mate. If. As much as he wanted Jordan, Edra wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to have a human mate or if it was even possible. He felt the bond thickening between them, but did Jordan?

  Jordan grimaced. “Come around tonight and I’ll tell you.”

  If he went around, he was almost sure that there’d be more than talking. He wanted to lie on the sof
a, belly full, contemplating the stupidity of dating a human. “That depends on what’s for dinner.”

  “I don’t know, but there’ll be lots of it.”

  “Okay. Just dinner?” Edra lifted his eyebrows.

  Jordan’s pupils swelled. He swallowed. “Save it for the weekend.”

  Two more days. As nice as it was to watch Jordan on a Bliss high, it was also too bloody tempting. It was getting harder and harder to not give in and let Jordan have him. But it was all or nothing, and he so wanted this to be more than lust. The hunger had changed, twisted deeper, but he still wasn’t sure. He was tempted to lean in and brush a kiss over Jordan’s cheek, taste his skin, but the cheap shorts wouldn’t do much to hide any swell of attraction, and humans were particular about that kind of thing not being on display. Instead he covered Jordan’s hand with his. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Then he fled the car before his hopes got lifted and he drew more attention.

  CARLY POUNCED on Edra while he was in the staff room with his mouth full of cookies. He’d shifted on the roof and then back and gotten dressed in the suit he’d left up there before his flight out to the hills. His skin was still a little tender from the burns, and he had a headache like an ogre was squeezing his temples. And he was hungry. The cookie tin had been empty except for the boring ones no one ever ate, so he didn’t feel bad for finishing them.

  “So, you and the cop.” Carly leaned on the fridge.

  Edra nearly choked on the five cookies in his mouth. His throat was so dry it took two tries to swallow the clump of cookie. He took his time getting another glass of water, paying far too much attention to the sink. He couldn’t outright lie; she’d have smelled him on Jordan. “Which cop?”

  “The most recent one. Blond, about your height, and super worried that you were up in the fire, like he didn’t know you were fireproof. He does know what you are?”

  “What I do and who I do in my spare time doesn’t matter.” Carly had never said anything when he was visiting the satyr den—no one fucked like a satyr, but he couldn’t go there for fun, not after Darian’s murder.

  “It does if they’re human and running Mytho SID. You’re screwing the enemy.”

  He hadn’t fucked Jordan, and Jordan hadn’t fucked him. But that would only make it worse in her eyes, because she’d know what he really wanted. He sipped his water, wishing he’d gone out to get lunch, but he really didn’t have the money to spare. He’d have to manage until dinner and hope that when Jordan said there’d be lots of food, he was talking in dragon terms, not human.

  “We need to stick together,” Carly said.

  “And we need to educate humans. We have to integrate.” It couldn’t be mytho versus human. The mythos would lose simply because of numbers.

  “And if we all hook up with humans, there’ll soon be none of us left.”

  “Let me know when you find a lesser dragon in need of fertilizing, and I’ll get right on it. Until then, who I bed isn’t your business.” He put the glass down and walked away.

  “There’s a rookery in Canada.”

  He stopped in the doorway and slowly turned. While he could wash Jordan off his skin, his clothes, there would always be enough to give him away to werewolves and dragons. The male had known as soon as he’d seen Jordan. The only reason he’d let Jordan close was because Edra had said they were mates, even though they weren’t. Not yet.

  He wanted a mate and liked Jordan enough that it could happen, but could he have that with a human? Humans didn’t mate for life, and they didn’t have the same kind of mating patterns. Jordan—and other humans—stuck their tongues in people’s mouths for no good reason. Among dragons, kissing was only done between mates. That he even managed to kiss Jordan on the face, on the lips, was huge, and that he had liked it was something else.

  The tiny fear at the back of his mind wouldn’t shut up. Jordan wasn’t mytho. He’d leave, and Edra would be left broken again. He wasn’t sure he could survive losing a second mate.

  “So I heard.” He wasn’t about to run off to Canada to join the small population of lesser dragons now living up there. He had a job to do. The mythos in San Francisco had been his responsibility before the shift, and they were still his. He was sworn to protect the dragons. He stepped toward Carly. “But I’m not what you’d call part of a breeding pair, never have been that way inclined. However, if a female wants a little something to make a clutch, I’ll give her what she needs. I know there aren’t many of us,” he hissed. “But you’d best mind your own business.”

  She leaned forward and snarled. “You disgust me, human licker.”

  Edra stuck out his tongue, all five blue inches of it. Most of his lovers liked his tongue. He didn’t know about Jordan yet, though Jordan seemed intrigued at Edra’s ability to swallow whole slices of pizza. And that wasn’t all he could swallow. He’d learned a few tricks from the satyrs. “You have the same attitude as the humans who want to put us back in internment camps to keep us separate.”

  He spun away, and she grabbed his arm. “Just remember whose side you’re on.”

  The only reason Edra had gotten the job of mytho liaison to the SFPD was because he could pass for human. Carly had been Ardel’s preferred candidate. He hadn’t wanted Edra to be distracted from his main job of ensuring that mytho crimes were covered up. The cops had a history of going after the mytho perpetrators but not the humans.

  He brushed off her hand. “I was a Knight before your parents were cubs. Do not try to remind me of my duties. Keep your claws off my suit and your eyes off my desk.”

  Chapter 4

  THERE WOULD be no Bliss tonight, but that didn’t stop Jordan’s body from thinking there would be. Or thinking about Edra and getting overly hopeful. He stirred the pot and tasted the Bolognese. This was a far bigger batch than he’d ever made. If Edra didn’t show, he’d be able to freeze it and not cook again for a week.

  Another small reminder that Edra wasn’t human, even if he looked it. He looked human even with his pants down, except for his lack of belly button and nipples. Jordan might have been strung out on Bliss the first time he noticed, but he remembered. He also remembered the way Edra’s touch had felt, or at least he thought he did. He couldn’t be sure if Bliss was messing with his memory.

  He adjusted himself, and the lace of his underwear cut in as his dick hardened. He shouldn’t have bothered with lingerie. It wasn’t that kind of dinner. If they had sex too soon, Edra’s lust would be sated and he’d lose interest in having anything more than a one-night stand. That “more” included mating for life was something Jordan tried not to think about too much. This was the closest thing to a relationship Jordan had attempted in several years. Edra hadn’t even flinched at his love of nice underwear. He liked it, which was more than could be said for most of Jordan’s exes.

  He topped up his glass.

  Dragons had done nothing but cause him grief all day. He’d brought home some details of the old thefts to get Edra’s opinion on them. The stolen goods weren’t cash or easily saleable goods but more random items—a mortar and pestle from an ogre, a string of teeth from a satyr, dragon eggs….

  There were half a dozen that no one had bothered to investigate because the victims were mytho. And they were just the ones that had been dumped on his desk from property crimes. He wasn’t sure he had a desk anymore, as every department dropped anything mytho related on him. He took a sip of wine. No, it wasn’t every mytho crime. Most cops were happy to go after mythos if they broke the law, just not when they were the victims of crime.

  The doorbell buzzed.

  Sinner hissed and plucked at the sofa as though she knew who was visiting.

  “You be nice.” He pointed at Sinner, who turned and licked her shoulder instead of looking at him. Even his cat didn’t respect him. He pressed the button and told Edra to come up.

  Jordan ran his fingers through his hair. He hoped he didn’t look too casual in jeans and a T-shirt, but he didn’t want
to be too dressed up either. This was just dinner and a chance to talk. The dragon incident had chewed up most of his afternoon.

  The mytho cases weren’t the kind of thing he wanted to work on. They were too political, and he was in a career cul-de-sac that could end up blocked off if he wasn’t careful.

  Sinner hissed and jumped off the sofa to hide in his bedroom.

  Edra knocked and Jordan opened the door. He wanted to lean in and give him a kiss, the way he would a human boyfriend, but they’d only kissed once on the lips, and it had been in celebration. They hadn’t talked about it since.

  “Whatever you’re cooking I can smell down the stairwell, and it smells great.” Edra stepped in and slid his arm around Jordan’s waist. For less than a second, Edra’s lips were pressed against his cheek.

  That was enough to make his heart kick over hard. It was stupid to be so infatuated with him, but Jordan couldn’t help it. Edra was the kind of man who turned heads. Dark hair, blue eyes, tall—it was easy to forget that he wasn’t human and that this attraction shouldn’t exist. But he couldn’t blame Bliss for his desire. It had been there long before he poured the red powder on his tongue with Edra watching. It was too dangerous to go to the vice den, for Jordan and the satyrs, but it wasn’t much safer having Edra supervise his Bliss use. He wanted Edra with every cell in his body, but knew what it would mean when they did finally sleep together.

  “It’s just spaghetti. Nothing fancy.” They didn’t have to rush.

  “I brought some chocolate for later.”

  How much later? He didn’t want to ask when Edra had only just arrived. If it were anyone else, he’d suggest leaving the sauce to simmer and kicking the cat out of the bedroom. The corner of Edra’s lips turned up as though he knew what Jordan was thinking, but he didn’t say anything. He just brushed past to the kitchen to look in the pot.

  Dating the mytho liaison officer would be a big strike against his name. They were meant to work together, not sleep together. But even though he knew that, he couldn’t stop. For the first time in what felt like forever, he’d found someone he was interested in and who was interested in him. Maybe he was too weird for human men, but was he weird enough to be a dragon’s mate?