Greed and Other Dangers

by TJ Nichols

  And if they had sex too soon, then all of this dancing around would’ve been for nothing. He didn’t want to fuck Edra only to have Edra look at him after and feel nothing because the itch had been scratched. Then Jordan would have to watch him walk out the door and never look back.

  Jordan leaned into Edra and tilted his head as Edra worked soft kisses up the side of his neck. Jordan’s cock hardened and pressed against the lace of his panties as Edra slid his hand over Jordan’s hip. Jordan drew in a breath. This wasn’t going to go anywhere, and he couldn’t take the teasing. He didn’t want to be the one always getting off while Edra watched, but his body remembered the way Edra’s hand had felt and the desire rushing through his blood along with the Bliss. He clenched his hand and tried to shutter the craving. He couldn’t do this now. “Stop being a cocktease and get a dish towel.”

  Edra stepped back and Jordan immediately missed the heat of his body. They did the dishes in silence. He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure what. He was still hard, and if Edra was offering to get him off… it was really unfair. “Why can’t we touch?”

  “We did.” A smile curved his lips but didn’t reach his eyes. “And if you’d been a lesser dragon, even that would’ve been too much. I know you want more. I can smell it.”

  “I can wait.” As much as Jordan wanted, he still wasn’t sure. “And then?”

  “And then….” Edra glanced at the tea towel in his hands. “We’re still not going to be able to go out together. I’m pretty sure your boss wouldn’t be impressed.”

  “No.” He pulled the plug and turned to face Edra. “But I haven’t met anyone worth waiting for in a long time.” The random hookups in clubs left him hollow. Bliss was a magnificent substitute, but he had no way of getting that anymore except through Edra, and he didn’t want his boyfriend to be his dealer. He knew how fucked-up that sentence was. He’d lose his job if he was caught using Bliss.

  “Same. But I can still offer you a hand.”

  That was safe. He’d watched Edra do himself, but he couldn’t help out. A hand wasn’t what he wanted. He could do himself later and not feel like a selfish prick. “Let’s watch the movie. Any preferences?”

  “Nothing with dragons.”

  He knew Edra didn’t like fantasy. He’d spent an entire film picking out the errors as though it were a documentary. “Action?”

  “Sure. It’s just as unbelievable.”

  “That’s the point. No one wants to watch real life.” He turned on the TV and flicked over to the streaming service. His history popped up.

  “Maxxxmonsters?”

  Jordan froze and hoped the sofa would eat him whole. “That was research. For a case!”

  “Uh-huh. What porn you watch is your choice.”

  “It was about Darian.”

  “I’m not sure you could handle a satyr dick.”

  “They aren’t real satyrs.” His face was burning and he couldn’t blame the heat of the kitchen anymore. He fumbled the remote trying to find a movie. He needed to delete his history.

  “Or real dragons?”

  Jordan opened his mouth to argue. But Edra laughed before he could say anything.

  “I’d be more worried if you weren’t curious.”

  Jordan put on the movie. It was one he’d seen plenty of times, so he barely paid attention. But it wasn’t about the movie. It was about being with Edra. This wasn’t an extended make-out session. They weren’t even kissing. Touching, yes. Tangled on the sofa, Edra’s head on his chest, his hand under Jordan’s shirt, and Jordan’s fingers in Edra’s dark hair. How much longer was this tease going to last? When they were touching like this, there was an edge in his blood that made it hard to think about anything but getting Edra naked and in his bed. He wasn’t sure it was only lust.

  And he wasn’t sure he wanted it to end.

  He was worried about being Edra’s mate. It was supposed to be for life, but what if it didn’t work out? His relationships never worked out, but Edra didn’t seem concerned at all.

  Someone on-screen ordered the sirens in the building turned off.

  Edra lifted his head. “Sirens. The mermaid colony.”

  “What about it?” He’d seen one mermaid and had no desire to see another anytime soon.

  “That’s where I saw the mirror.”

  “Why would they have the mirror? And how did they get it?”

  “I’ll find out tomorrow.”

  Fortunately Edra didn’t invite him to come along.

  Chapter 5

  EDRA WAS tired and cranky and sore before he flew out to the mermaid colony. He’d left Jordan’s just after midnight, and he was wound so tight that, if he’d walked past a vice den, he might have stepped inside. But he wasn’t hungry for just anyone.

  That was part of why he was cranky. He was sure what he felt had moved past lust, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for a mate, even though that was what he wanted. He’d had a mate, but he lost him in the collapse. Now that he’d found someone else and was getting a second shot, he shouldn’t pass it up. But humans were messy and complicated, and it wouldn’t be the same.

  His wings and back ached as he swept over the New Golden Gate Bridge toward Alcatraz. He’d have to visit Tatiana to get the knots worked out of his muscles. She’d tell him off and make him wish he were dead, but he’d feel better afterward. He’d call her when he got back to the office.

  Smoke drifted over the city from the fires burning in the hills.

  While his skin was mostly healed, he still had marks on his ass. He circled low over the island twice to give the merfolk plenty of warning, but also to give himself a chance to look for the mirror.

  It wasn’t there. He was sure it had been against a wall in the pile of shiny objects the mermaids had collected.

  Something skipped through the waves away from the island—not a dolphin or one of the merfolk. Edra followed it before it dove. If he’d been on Tariko, he’d have said it was a water dragon, a kind of flightless lesser dragon. In the ten years since the collapse, he hadn’t seen any in San Francisco. There hadn’t been any in his town on Tariko, so that hadn’t surprised him. Perhaps it had just been a fish.

  He circled back to the old human prison and hovered as he waited to be invited to land. Doing so without permission would only cause offense, and he didn’t want to get dragged beneath the water. He couldn’t breathe underwater, because he wasn’t a water dragon. So he rolled his neck trying to ease the tension as he waited for one of the merfolk to wave him over.

  It was mostly the mermaids that came to the surface, the men preferring the depths where they raised the children while the women lured sailors to their deaths and brought home dinner.

  One lounged in the sun. She looked at him and grinned. Her mouth was full of sharp conical teeth that would tear through even his thick dragon skin.

  She didn’t wave him down. Instead she started to sing.

  When a mermaid spoke, their voice was sharp, like broken glass, and just as painful to listen to. Their singing was no better, but there was a lure to it that made him drop closer to the waves. Below the surface, their song was said to make a man want to die from the beauty.

  His feet touched the water and he snapped out of the spell in her song and wheeled away out of range. She lay on the rock laughing.

  He roared but resisted the temptation to go down and snatch her up in his claws. It was hard to police mermaids, always had been. The best he could hope for was an agreement of nonviolence, which basically meant they got to do what they wanted as long as they didn’t wipe whole cities off the map with the storms the mermen could whip up.

  They were the reason there was a New Golden Gate Bridge—the first one hadn’t survived the merfolk fury after the collapse. The three-day storm and tidal surge had killed many humans and mythos.

  He hadn’t forgotten, and he was sure the humans hadn’t either.

  He gave the island a final loop, but there was no mirror and there were no
answers.

  Typical.

  He flew back toward the bridge, where a naked man sat on the edge of one of the pylons. His face was round and pale like the moon. A water dragon, or Edra had been born, not hatched. He landed and shook off the shift.

  Two naked men under a bridge would draw attention from people on their boats. There was still some weird rule about not being naked in public, which made shifting that little bit harder because, for a few moments, he was a naked human. He doubted they’d arrest him in dragon form for not wearing pants—it wasn’t like anything hung out.

  “I’m Edra Tendric, Knight of San Francisco. I haven’t seen you before.” Water dragons usually hung around water, but people should’ve reported seeing him. There should be some kind of record if he’d been in the bay since the collapse.

  “I know who you are.”

  “Then you know you should introduce yourself when you enter the city.”

  “You still cleaving to those old ways?” The water dragon shook his head. His webbed toes dangled in the water.

  “Do you mean, do I still do my job? Yes.”

  The man pointed to the fires that stained the sky. “How are the dragons?”

  “Fine. Thank you for asking. Why are you here?”

  “To visit the mermaids.” He slithered into the water and shifted as he went.

  But Edra saw the red smear of an unhealed burn down his back. He glanced up at the hills. Too far for a water dragon to go. They couldn’t fly, and they needed to stay hydrated. More likely it was sunburn. His white skin was damaged from lying on the rocks with the mermaids.

  Edra shook his head. He shouldn’t judge… but merfolk?

  He shifted and let cold wash over his skin so that he was invisible. Then he took one more high-level fly over the colony, where he spotted the mermaid and the dragon lounging together on the rock.

  It might be weird, but because they were both mythos, no one would say anything. Edra wheeled away feeling an unflattering amount of jealousy.

  “THE MAYOR is in Ardel’s office.” The elf who tried to sort out housing issues pulled Edra aside.

  “The mayor is here?”

  “She came in about thirty minutes ago. Ardel stopped at your desk, looked annoyed, and then they went in.”

  “She’s human, and she went into a vampire’s office, alone?” Humans didn’t do that. They tried to avoid vampires as much as possible, not realizing vampires probably had the most honor and clung to a code of ethics that had seen them win many wars against the elves.

  Why was the mayor here? If it was about the dragons nesting in the Presidio, there was nothing Edra could do.

  The elf nodded. “Are we going to get shut down?”

  “I don’t know.” Edra went back to his desk and texted Ardel that he was back from Alcatraz.

  Three seconds later Ardel’s door opened, and Edra didn’t wait for the invitation. He went in and closed the door after him.

  Dr. Lew stood. “Knight Tendric, glad you could join us. I hear you went out to see the merfolk.” She said folk as though she had to remember that there weren’t just mermaids on the island. At least she was trying.

  Edra shook her hand. The human custom of constantly touching was no longer strange, but he didn’t understand it. It wasn’t as though they could scent him or were going to taste him. Their touch couldn’t draw anything from him. It was just unnecessary touching, but he forced a smile.

  She’d been elected on a good platform and she seemed better than the ex-mayor, but she was still new to the job.

  They both sat.

  “How is everything on Alcatraz?”

  “Pretty quiet today.” He glanced at Ardel, but the vampire gave away no clues. His face was impassive, his hair perfectly styled, and his suit immaculate. Before the collapse he’d had a string of admirers who offered up their body and blood.

  “Dr. Lew was asking about mermen and their storm-calling ability.”

  Edra inclined his head. He was not going to ask for that favor. He liked breathing air.

  “I remember the storms after the collapse. This isn’t the first year fires have ripped through the hills—not just here, but all along California—and it occurred to me that we might have a solution.”

  Edra glanced between Ardel and Dr. Lew. He knew exactly where their idea was heading. It might work, but it might also be the worst thing ever.

  Adel leaned forward. “One that carries risk. You have more dealings with the merfolk than anyone, Tendric. What do you think?”

  That I should’ve stopped off for that hot chocolate and that I shouldn’t have eaten that fish while shifted. He was sure it flopped in his belly, whole and unchewed. “It wouldn’t be without cost.”

  “Yes. I understand that. But three firefighters have already died, one of whom was a prison volunteer. Two towns are just ash, and a truck has been all but destroyed after carrying a dragon through the city. Nothing is without cost.” The way she said it, Edra was pretty sure the cost had been agreed upon and they were just telling him what was going to happen. One ruined fire truck equaled one merfolk storm to put out the fires.

  “The power of the storm would be out of your control. Once arranged….” Edra paused. “There could be storm damage.”

  “But if it were planned, we could warn people. This could be a way to show how the mythos can work with us.”

  She didn’t understand that the merfolk didn’t give a shit about humans, or anyone else, for that matter. They had the compassion of griffins and were only slightly less poisonous. Ardel gave him a look that a human might have thought was a smile. But a vampire never bared their teeth in a smile, certainly never revealed a full length of fang. It was a warning that he wouldn’t be given twice.

  So Edra nodded and played along. This was going to happen no matter what he said, and it was going to be his job to go out there and make it happen.

  Dr. Lew leaned forward a little. “There is talk that the dragons started the fire.”

  Ardel pushed a newspaper across the table.

  “Of course that would be ridiculous. There were many terrible fires before the collapse, but with the dragons now in such a public place and nesting too….” She smiled and shrugged as though the conclusion were obvious.

  Edra picked up the paper and skimmed the article. There were several pictures. The dragon on the truck, the female knocking down trees… him in the background, wrapped in a blanket. The egg was hidden, but the reporter wasn’t a fool. Edra checked the byline and let out a small hiss. Carlin Howard had found himself a new job.

  “I have confirmed that they are nesting,” Ardel said, “and that we’re unsure how long they might be there for.”

  “Obviously the city will protect them.”

  “Which will cost money.” Edra said what the mayor wasn’t willing to say.

  She nodded. “I knew you’d understand. You move between the mytho and human communities with ease, and you understand both.”

  It wasn’t easy, and he didn’t understand humans as well as she thought he did. What would she make of the extra time he spent with Jordan?

  As though hearing his thoughts, the Mayor asked, “How is Inspector Kells doing?”

  “We’re investigating some stolen items.”

  “Good. I hope the mytho community appreciates the work the city is doing to make sure they’re integrated. I believe Texas is still resisting.”

  “We really do appreciate the change in direction. I’m sure we can work something out with the merfolk.” Ardel shot Edra another look. There was no we. Just him. He’d love to see Ardel or Carly go out there and make nice with the psychopaths on Alcatraz. “We’ll keep your office appraised of the dragon situation and also when to expect the rain.”

  “Excellent.” She stood and shook Ardel’s hand and then Edra’s. “I do look forward to seeing you again.”

  Ardel showed her out and then returned and shut the door. Mythos couldn’t vote; they weren’t citizens. But if
they could, they’d have voted for her. The previous mayor was two steps away from imprisoning all mythos. But Dr. Lew was smart. She knew exactly what to say and when to say it to get what she wanted. Right now she wanted the mythos to help the humans. Refusing would make the mythos look bad.

  Ardel sat. For several heartbeats he said nothing. Then he folded up the newspaper and pushed it to one side. “If I thought it would help, I’d let the dragons eat her.”

  “Perhaps she’d like to negotiate with the merfolk.”

  They both laughed, but it was hollow.

  “I have to go out there and ask for rain.”

  “Yes. What happened this morning? You weren’t scheduled to go out there.”

  “Kells—” He was careful to use Jordan’s surname. “—has some open cases on items stolen from mythos. He had some pictures from a place online where they are up for sale, my sword included.”

  Ardel’s eyebrows lifted, which caused his forehead to crumple like newspaper. “Is there much?”

  “Did your nest lose a mirror?”

  “We lost lots of things in the collapse.”

  “More recently.”

  “There was a break-in a while ago. The cops didn’t care, and we thought that if someone did use the mirror, they deserved what came their way. Have you found it?”

  He should’ve taken it from the merfolk when he saw it, but one didn’t take things from merfolk. And Ardel had never reported it stolen. But given that mermaids didn’t part with their treasures, it should’ve still been there.

  “Not exactly. It was one of Jordan’s photos.” He realized the slip the moment the name rolled off his tongue, but he swallowed and went on, hoping Ardel would ignore it. “I thought I saw it on Alcatraz, but it’s not there. I must have been mistaken.”

  “I doubt the merfolk crawled to my nest.”