Greed and Other Dangers

by TJ Nichols

  “So do I.” It didn’t make sense. “Did you know there’s a water dragon in the bay?”

  “No. But there is, obviously.”

  “Yes, friendly with the mer. I didn’t get his name.”

  “Search the records and see what you can find. Ask Jordan to help.”

  Edra went cold. His hands went silvery, but they were in his lap, so Ardel wouldn’t notice his loss of visibility. He breathed in through his nose and tried to be calm, to force the cold away.

  “How closely are you working with him?”

  “Close enough that I keep him supplied in Bliss.” But he wouldn’t be able to hide their relationship forever. And the relationship was more than Bliss, wasn’t it? But Jordan hadn’t wanted Edra to touch him last night. It seemed they only touched when Jordan was Blissing. For Edra, the desire to wait clashed with the need to claim his mate. Waiting was safer for both of them, even if Jordan’s rejection stung. “And he keeps me in the loop about what he’s working on.”

  Ardel nodded. “You should know Carly thinks you’re too involved.”

  Carly should mind her own business. “I’m not a werewolf. I don’t get distracted by coming into heat.”

  “No.” Ardel leaned back. “But I also know dragons of any kind aren’t solitary creatures. Humans don’t make good mates. They can’t be trusted.”

  “I know.”

  He should’ve just gone for one night of lust, but he was so tired of never having more. He wanted a mate. He wanted everything he’d lost, or at least something close to it. He wanted to be more than Jordan’s kinky fuck while he was on Bliss. But damn, if that was all he was going to get, he’d take it. Right now it was the best thing on offer.

  He was pathetic.

  As the water dragon had said, Edra was following the old ways—they all were—when they were in an entirely new world. But his biology hadn’t changed. He couldn’t stop being a lesser dragon, with all that entailed, even if he wanted to.

  Edra opened the office door. “How is your niece? Enjoying married life?”

  “Yes, though my brother was unimpressed with the way the fight turned out.”

  “I was only there to adjudicate.” If Ardel’s niece had married into the LA nest, that would have formed an alliance between the two biggest vampire families on the west coast. Vampires loved politics the way most people liked breathing. And they were up to something—Edra just didn’t know what. He had to be careful with his digging. “Did the loser make reparation to your niece yet? I’m still waiting.”

  “I don’t believe so. I’ll get in contact with him and ensure you get paid. He’s lucky you didn’t eat him.”

  Edra had some standards. Vampires were chewy. If he had a mirror of truth, he’d be asking some questions of Ardel, but instead he smiled. “Thanks. I need to replace the suit.”

  Chapter 6

  THERE WAS a dragon on his desk. Jordan picked it up. The toy was made of some kind of shiny green fabric, and while the maker had put in some effort, it still didn’t look much like a real dragon. It was more like a green dog with wings. He held it for a moment and wondered if he should toss it, donate it, or keep it.

  He’d learned long ago not to show signs of upset or anger. They would only encourage a tormentor. He already had a cheap eyeliner in the cup with his pens, after a photo of him wearing makeup had been printed in an article about cops who were too friendly with mythos. He put the dragon on the computer hard drive as though it were the mascot of the Mytho SID.

  “Thought you’d be out with the dragons,” David said.

  Jordan glanced up. “No. Got a pile of burglaries to go through that no one bothered to follow up on.” He gave David a pointed look.

  “While you play zookeeper, there’s real police work to be done.”

  “It is real police work. Last time I checked, theft was a crime. I also have an assault and a murder that dates back five years, though it looks like no evidence was gathered for that one, given that the suspect was human.”

  David stared at him. “While the rest of us protect the humans, you protect the monsters.”

  “Maybe they need protection from us,” Jordan muttered, but David was already walking away.

  This job wasn’t his choice. He was supposed to move to homicide, but instead, he’d ended up with his own division because the mayor had seen him at the satyr temple for Darian’s funeral. There shouldn’t be a Mytho SID. The crimes committed against them should fall under the appropriate existing divisions. But it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, at least not for a few more years.

  Would the mythos ever be seen as people?

  He stared at his screen and saw Edra’s name in the emails. His heart gave little flip and his lips turned up in a small smile. He shouldn’t get a rush just from seeing his name. No one was ready for interspecies dating.

  Except him, apparently.

  He was sure his father would tell him he was acting out. He could hear his father’s voice ringing in his ears, but no snap of a belt followed. He’d left his parents far behind, but they still took up space in his head.

  He sighed. People were dating mythos, they were just doing it quietly, secretly, so no one got assaulted or killed. Darian had tried that, but he’d been killed for dating his human tutor. Worry gnawed at Jordan. It was starting to keep him awake and make him second-guess every public interaction with Edra. What would his coworkers do if they knew how much time he spent with one certain dragon?

  He scanned the office.

  The toy dragon could’ve been left by anyone, and no one would admit to it even if he asked, so there was no point.

  He gathered up the list of places he needed to go and went to do some police work. No matter what anyone said, he was doing his job. That they didn’t like what he was doing was a different matter.

  JORDAN PUT on mascara and a touch of eyeliner and placed small studs in his ears—nothing too much, even though he was meeting his friends in their favorite bar, where almost anything was acceptable. His blood hummed like he’d be getting Bliss later, but he couldn’t walk the block to the vice den the way he once had.

  Edra would bring Bliss on the weekend, so he was going to have to wait. That Edra still went to the den…. He tried not to think about that. They hadn’t said they were exclusive, but that was the assumption, wasn’t it?

  His steps faltered when he saw Mason at the table, embracing a man. Mason would never cheat. It was only when they drew apart that Jordan realized it was Bud, who was supposed to be on deployment.

  He wove his way to the table. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Hey.” Bud stood and gave him a hug as though they were friends. “Look at you all prettied up.”

  Dickhead. “Thanks for noticing.” He batted his darkened lashes, knowing it would irk Bud. He wished he had gone all out so Bud was forced to play nice. It wasn’t just that Bud had an anti-femme streak as wide as the Grand Canyon. Jordan was used to that.

  “So, a little change of plans. I’ll be having a birthday party this weekend. You’ll be able to come?” Mason sipped his drink and lifted his eyebrows hopefully.

  “I think so.” He’d still be able to see Edra. It would be fine.

  “Your boyfriend is invited.”

  Jordan kept his smile in place. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, right. Don’t believe you. You’ve been ducking and weaving for weeks. What does he do?”

  Dammit. His cover was blown. It had been weeks, and Mason was bound to notice something. He needed to come clean with something close to the truth. “Cop.”

  It was an easy lie, too easy, but better than trying to deny that he was seeing someone. At some point he’d have to introduce Edra to his friends. Most of them would be fine. They wouldn’t notice he was mytho unless he stuck out his tongue. How were he and Edra ever going to be able to go out?

  But they had gone out. They’d gotten coffee after the funeral. They’d gone out for drinks w
hile they’d waited for the election results. And they’d gone to mytho-run places, places where he was the odd one, but no one cared because he was with Edra. Edra had no problems introducing Jordan to his friends.

  He swallowed and wished he had a drink in his hand already. The problem was him.

  “Ohhh. Didn’t think you liked men in uniform,” Mason said.

  He didn’t. When he first put on a uniform, he’d arrested too many military men after bar fights or for drunk driving, or worse, turned a blind eye when they took their frustration out on a mytho. The line between Bud and him was marked in blood and a case that had been buried. But the moment Mason walked in with Bud on his arm, Jordan had recognized him. Jordan’s hints had slid off his lovestruck friend. For Mason’s sake he tried to believe that Bud had grown up and regretted it. He’d never done anything like that since, at least not that Jordan could find.

  “He doesn’t have one.” And he really didn’t want to be saying any more. “What day is the party?”

  “Saturday at seven. Barbecue, beers, game on TV,” Bud said.

  “Hang on. It’s supposed to be my birthday party.” Mason nudged Bud.

  Bud grinned. “And Mason will be mixing fancy drinks with umbrellas.”

  Sometimes Jordan didn’t understand how Mason and Bud even worked as a couple. But they did, and he wanted something like that for himself. He’d had something exactly like that, and it hadn’t lasted two years. Would this thing with Edra last any longer?

  His pocket buzzed.

  He pulled his phone out, hoping it wasn’t work. He smiled. “I got to take this.”

  “Got a better offer?” Bud said as he lifted his beer.

  Jordan had already remembered why he preferred it when Bud wasn’t around, but you made the effort to get on with your friends’ partners. That’s what friends did. He’d like to think his friends wouldn’t care that Edra was mytho. “It’s my sister.”

  He answered the call as he stepped away from his friends and tried to find a quieter spot. “Hey, Katie.”

  “Hey yourself. Where are you?” She hadn’t called him in a while.

  “Out.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed, as though she needed to talk.

  “I can call you when I get home?”

  “No. It will be too late. I just got off work, and they take the phone off me when I get home.”

  He wasn’t surprised. Their parents had done the same thing to him when they realized they’d lost control and they weren’t impressed with the direction he was heading. He was still considered the family failure, doomed to rot in hell. No doubt they were still praying for his soul, but clearly there weren’t enough prayers to save him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Nothing new, anyway. I just wanted to remind you that my birthday is coming up.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten. Same bank account?” He’d send her a bit of money, something his parents couldn’t throw away.

  “Yeah.” Something was bothering her. There was a ten-year gap between them, she’d been a surprise to his parents, but he was closer to her than his older two siblings. She exhaled, and Jordan couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t smoking. “When you left for college, did they try to stop you?”

  “I applied to the ones they wanted me to in Texas, but I also applied out of state. I needed out.” He’d left home the day he finished school, left for San Francisco the next day. It was better than waiting for his parents to find the excuse they needed to kick him out. His terms and his way. He glanced at the table, where Mason and Bud had been joined by Sean and Pete. He shouldn’t be worried about introducing Edra to them. They should be happy for him. “What have they done?”

  “I got in to film school in LA. They told me I can’t go, that I should be more like Beth.”

  “Marry straight out of school?”

  “They said getting student loan debt would be a waste of time.” She sniffed and drew in a deep breath. She was definitely smoking again. They’d talked about the smoking before, but tonight wasn’t the night to tackle that issue.

  “It’s your life.”

  “I know.”

  “I just….” She sighed, and he could imagine the smoke coiling around her. “I don’t know how to leave.”

  He hadn’t had a clue either. Looking back, it was nothing short of a miracle that he survived. He’d hitched rides. He’d taken some iffy jobs. “At least the world won’t collapse.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. They blamed you and your unholy acts.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He didn’t want to discuss that with his sister. “Two more weeks, and then they can’t do anything. You’ll be eighteen.”

  Katie sniffed again. He hadn’t seen her in person since he left, and even though she sent pictures, he still saw her as the fair-haired eight-year-old he’d said goodbye to in the driveway, the gravel biting his knees through his jeans, bag over his shoulder. She begged him not to leave and he almost stayed. But if he had, he was sure he wouldn’t be alive today.

  “It’ll be okay. I promise. It gets better.” Short of going home, he didn’t know what he could do for her. “You can do this. I’ll send you the money for the bus fare.” He didn’t want Katie hitching to LA. She’d be dead before she crossed the state line.

  “Can I see the dragons if I come to San Francisco?”

  He smiled. She must have seen Carlin’s news article about the dragons in the Presidio. “LA has dragons too.”

  She drew in a breath. “Okay. Fourteen days. I can do this.”

  She sounded so much like him that it broke his heart. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “Thank you.” She hung up first.

  Jordan held his phone and stared at the screen until the picture of her in her cheerleader gear dimmed. She’d quit at the start of the year and hadn’t sent him any pictures since then. He frowned and almost called her back. But he was in a bar, and she had to get home. No doubt she had a curfew as well as restricted phone use.

  He opened up his banking app and sent her a hundred for her birthday. He’d find out the cost of a ticket and send her that tomorrow. He knew how bad it was to be counting down the days.

  He glanced at his friends. He shouldn’t be hiding his boyfriend, so he texted Edra about Saturday to see if he wanted to come. Jordan would understand if he didn’t want to hang out with a bunch of humans. He wouldn’t blame him if that were the case, but Edra at his side would make being around some loved-up couples a touch more bearable.

  Chapter 7

  WHILE EDRA wouldn’t visit the den for pleasure, as a place to go and have a drink and be surrounded by mythos, there was no place like it. He showed his ID as he went in, but they knew him by sight.

  “Would you like some company?”

  He shook his head. There was only one bed he wanted to fall into at the moment and he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Edra noted the surprise on the satyr’s face. He needed to make the effort to know their names, but he couldn’t know every single mytho in San Francisco. He’d never known all the mythos before, but there’d been more of them back then….

  He glanced at the doors to the room where Bliss was used. That was where he’d first seen Jordan, and at first glance, he’d thought he was an elf. Edra’s lips curved. How wrong he’d been. But he wished he’d been right. That would’ve been so much easier. The reality of being mated to a human was far different from what he was used to. If Jordan could only deal with his touch when on Bliss, he wasn’t ready, no matter what words slipped off his tongue.

  At the back of the bar were a few werewolves, an elf staring at her absinthe, and at the far end, a small knot of vampires. They could go to regular bars, but people tended to call the cops when all they wanted was a drink, not blood.

  The satyr den was a safe place to go. It was almost like being home. He sat and closed his eyes. Beyond the pipes and lyre playing were the moans and slap of skin from behind the curtains. He waited for intere
st to spike and lust to demand action.

  Nothing.

  Jordan had broken him. He should be going to Jordan’s place and making use of his bed. Then all he’d have to do was wait for Jordan to get tired of keeping him a secret and to rip his heart out of his chest. Losing a second mate would just about kill him. He wasn’t sure he could trust Jordan to handle his heart.

  Humans.

  “Usual?”

  Edra nodded, admiring the chest of the satyr behind the bar and the way his horns curved. Why couldn’t he have fallen for a mytho? Any mytho would have been easier. Another lesser dragon would’ve been easiest. He was never going to be able to fly with his mate over the city. There would be no chase through the sky and no fall as they made taking a tumble literal.

  And the mytho community might stop trusting him if he was with a human cop, but he didn’t like to admit Carly might have a point. The mead arrived warm and sweet and golden, and it wouldn’t leave him wrecked tomorrow, unlike human beer.

  He sipped the mead, and the heat burst like a sun within him.

  If he weren’t clinging to his title and tradition, he would’ve left San Francisco and gone north to be with the other lesser dragons. But there was no guarantee he’d have found what he wanted up there either. Potential mates weren’t that common. He’d had a possible before Lyo, but he’d wisely broken the forming bond before they completed it. The gods that survived the collapse must be having a laugh to offer him a human. Already he couldn’t imagine not having Jordan in his life. He’d filled a hole that Edra hadn’t realized even existed.

  Edra emptied the glass and indicated for another.

  Two was his limit or he’d have no chance of controlling his visibility and his stomach would feel slippery and he wouldn’t be able to eat. If he didn’t eat, he got cranky, like any hungry dragon. Human beer made him feel as though his head were going to split open, but that didn’t stop him from drinking it. A headache was just a headache.

  A handful of drinks gave him the kind of hangover that was best slept off as a dragon.