Greed and Other Dangers

by TJ Nichols

  Everyone clapped. Jordan snagged two glasses of champagne and passed one to Edra, but Edra shook his head.

  “Just toast. I’ll drink it for you.”

  After that, the shots came out, and the drinking games started.

  And Jordan had no idea how he got home.

  JORDAN BLINKED. He felt as though he’d been run over. His mouth was gritty, and he needed intravenous coffee. He shouldn’t have had any of the shots. He turned over, but he was in his bed alone. He was sure he’d been in a taxi with Edra, and he was almost sure they’d come upstairs together.

  Maybe Edra had flown home.

  Jordan threw himself out of bed, still in last night’s clothes, minus his shoes and jeans. In the bathroom he washed his face so he didn’t look like a panda, and he took out his earrings. Then he padded out to the kitchen to get coffee.

  In the living room, he stopped, his brain glitching on what was in the middle of the floor.

  Sinner hated Edra.

  Or at least Jordan thought she did, but the lying, hissing bitch was curled up next to the lovely silver dragon, both of them purring.

  Jordan scrubbed his hand over his face, but they were both still there. He had never been so drunk that he’d woken up with a dragon on his floor, but there was a first time for everything, apparently. If he weren’t wearing his briefs, he might have had more questions.

  Sinner stretched, and Edra gave her a lick. The cat had all the damn fun.

  Edra coughed and opened an eye, and Sinner startled to fully awake and sprang away as though she were embarrassed that she’d cuddled up to a dragon. Lucky bitch.

  “Too late. I saw it all.” Jordan went into the kitchen, but he watched as Edra staggered up like an intoxicated butterfly, all wing and leg.

  Was he still drunk? Edra had done a couple of shots, but he definitely hadn’t been a dragon in the taxi home. He opened his wings, stretched as much as he could without knocking things over, and ambled into the kitchen, claws tapping on the floor.

  He’d only seen him in dragon form a few times but had never had the opportunity to have a closer look. Edra wasn’t all silver. His claws were much like a cat’s—clear at the ends, pink at the base. He didn’t have scales like an alligator or the big dragons; his skin was more like that of a snake. The skin of his wings was so thin it was almost translucent in the morning sunlight.

  Edra used a claw to hook open the fridge.

  “Can I get the milk?” Jordan slid in and grabbed the carton, trying not to question his sanity before his first coffee. His boyfriend was currently a dragon. Nothing odd about that. He knew Edra was a shapeshifter, so this was normal. “Sleep well?”

  Edra snagged both chickens with a claw through the plastic and dropped them on the kitchen counter.

  Jordan made his coffee extra milky and chugged down half the cup, hoping he’d start to feel human soon and this morning would make a little more sense. “Hot chocolate?”

  Edra shook his head. That wasn’t like him at all. Then he tore open the plastic around a chicken, stabbed it up with one claw, and ate the whole thing with two crunches and a swallow.

  Jordan’s stomach bucked like a bull. It was too early for raw meat, especially raw chicken. He glanced away and took a deep breath, but Edra nudged him with his tail and pointed at the cupboard where the glasses were.

  “If you shifted, you could talk to me.” But he got down a glass. Not sure if he was getting the cold shoulder for something he’d done at the party or if there was something else going on. Edra had slept on the floor.

  Edra pointed to the sugar and then got out the hot sauce with his very flexible tail. It was pretty clear Edra wanted a glass of water, sugar, and hot sauce.

  “Are you doing this to avoid talking to me?” Jordan poured sugar in and then a little more until Edra was happy.

  Edra shook his head and ripped open the packaging around the second chicken. Jordan looked away, but the crunching of bones was still almost too much for his delicate stomach to take. He took a slow breath and tried not to think about what Edra had eaten. Did he not have to worry about food poisoning?

  With the swallowing of chicken done, Jordan took another look at Edra. He was still a dragon. His wing claws rested on the counter, and he was glaring at the sugar and holding the hot sauce bottle with his tail. Jordan was no lesser dragon expert, but he was willing to make a pretty solid guess based on the delicacy of his own stomach and the headache blooming in his temples.

  “You can’t shift, can you? This is your hangover.” Jordan smiled, and a laugh almost made it to his lips.

  Edra glanced at him and hissed. His expression changed from a scowl to something more wide-eyed. Then he leaned over the sink and started to cough.

  Jordan’s phone rang. He swore, and it took him too long to find it in last night’s jeans, which were by the front door, along with Edra’s clothes. He didn’t remember either of them getting undressed, and he wasn’t entirely sure they’d only gotten undressed. Shit, he’d remember if he accidentally got mated? “Kells.”

  “You need to get down to the docks. Another boat went down yesterday, and one man is missing.”

  Edra coughed and hacked up a chicken wing into the sink.

  Jordan swallowed hard, not sure his coffee was going to stay down. “Say again. The cat was barfing up a furball.”

  “Andrew Campbell is missing. Presumed taken by mermaids.”

  “I’ll get down there as soon as possible.” Right after he’d had more coffee and a shower and dealt with the dragon in his kitchen. He hung up and raked his fingers through his hair, which was still clumpy with last night’s product.

  As pretty as Edra was in his dragon form, Jordan needed him to be human. Fix Edra and finish his coffee. After that he could think.

  “How much hot sauce with your sugar?” Too much for a human was the answer. Jordan added just enough water to make it into a paste and then held the glass while Edra licked it out.

  “So how fucked are you because Andrew Campbell was taken by mermaids while out for a sail this morning?” Jordan finished his coffee and tried not to look at the chicken wing in the sink.

  Edra rested his wing claws on the sink and stretched his neck. Jorden expected the rest of the chicken to come back up, but it didn’t. Edra shifted in an awkward jumble of stretches and clicks. Then he was human, naked, and leaning over the sink as though he were dying.

  “Thanks.” He drew in a breath. Then he slid to the floor as though his legs were boneless and held his head in his unclawed hands.

  “I’m having another coffee.” Even that wouldn’t be enough. “Do you want another one of those things? What is it? A dragon hangover cure?”

  “Shifting cure. I shifted to dragon in my sleep to process the alcohol faster.”

  “But you’re still rat shit.”

  “Yeah. It’s the beer.”

  “It was light beer.”

  Edra winced. “I think it’s the hops.”

  “Not the shots?”

  “I only had one… maybe two. You drank the others.”

  Of course he had. That explained why his stomach was feeling fragile and his head was pounding. “Don’t drink beer if it’s that bad. Stick to wine.”

  “I wanted to fit in. Otherwise I’d have brought a bottle of mead. That only affects my balance.”

  “I need to take some aspirin because my hangover is crushing my skull.”

  Another cell phone started to ring—Edra’s. He rummaged through Edra’s clothes and tossed him his phone. “Come and have a shower. You might feel more… more like yourself.”

  Jordan didn’t need to listen to the conversation to know it was about mermaids and an order to get down to the docks. He finished his coffee in the bathroom as the water warmed up. Then he stripped and got in. He wanted to go back to bed and die quietly.

  Edra paced into the bathroom, his skin so pale all the blue veins showed up. Jordan cracked open the door to make it clear he could get in.
They had no time for anything, and while he didn’t know about Edra, he felt too much like roadkill to do anything but let the water hit him. Edra stepped in, and Jordan made room for him under the water.

  They stood like corpses waiting to be reanimated. The shower wasn’t working.

  “You have your showers cold.” Edra shivered as though the water were glacially cold, not turn-into-a-lobster hot. Jordan’s skin was already pink.

  “It’s all yours.” His hand brushed Edra’s.

  Edra captured his fingers. He squeezed and gave Jordan a small smile. “I’ll have that hot chocolate now if you’re going into the kitchen.”

  “You can have it once you’ve cleaned the chicken wing out of the sink. I’ll bring you a towel.”

  The bathroom was foggy when Jordan stepped back in with the towel. Edra shivered as he stood under the spray, his visibility shifting so his arm was there and then gone. His torso, then his legs, but not his feet. He was in a bad way.

  “Here you go.” Jordan put the towel on the vanity.

  In the kitchen, Sinner was in the sink, the chicken wing almost gone. Coffee and bile raced up Jordan’s throat. He turned away, swallowed hard to force his stomach to obey, and got out two travel cups. They needed to get a move on. Yesterday’s jeans and a clean shirt would have to do. He pulled one out for Edra too and left it on the bed with his jeans.

  Edra didn’t look any better when he came into the kitchen. Without a word he picked up what was left of the chicken and put it in the garbage. Then he put Sinner on the floor. “Sorry about that. And this morning.”

  “It’s fine. I’ve just never had a hungover dragon in my place before.” He handed Edra the cup. “It’s extra….”

  He had been going to say hot and strong and sugary, but apparently none of that mattered, because it was devoured in a couple of gulps. “I need the heat or I’m going to have problems staying visible.”

  “You want hot sauce in the next one?”

  “Why not.”

  Jordan could think of a hundred reasons why not, but he made the second hot chocolate while Edra wiped the bench and threw away the chicken packaging.

  With cups in hand, they went to Jordan’s car. He started it but didn’t pull out. Edra cupped his hot chocolate as though his life depended on it.

  “Before we go, is there anything you want to tell me about this boating accident?”

  Edra lifted his gaze. “Word travels and mermaids enjoy taking revenge?”

  He put the car into gear. “That’ll do. But no one is going to like it.”

  “Some would call it justice.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” He could call Edra a cop, and they could play at being a human couple, but they weren’t and they never would be. And if word got out, where would he end up? It twisted in his guts like broken glass, but all he wanted was Edra. To hell with the consequences.

  Chapter 15

  EDRA DIDN’T really want to leave the warmth of the car. Jordan had put the heater on, so he was starting to feel a little better and he wasn’t disappearing as randomly. Outside, clouds were gathering and the bay was choppy. He was not going on a boat this morning.

  Jordan leaned forward and rested his forearms on the steering wheel. “The storm is building, but I can see why so many people wanted to get out and sail this morning. It’s been flat for days.” He glanced at Edra. “Something about the merfolk storm?”

  “It was the lull before the storm as they drag the power of the tides to them… or something. I don’t know a lot about the process.” He knew enough to stay out of the water if there were mermaids, and he knew that if the ocean went still, it was time to find a place to hide. But the period when the storm was building, the air currents beckoned. “Sailing, flying. People can feel the energy, and they want to be in it. Just make sure you don’t stay out too late.”

  “I won’t be out in it.”

  Edra grinned. “I will be.”

  “Feeling better?”

  “I’m still having issues.”

  “You look fine.”

  “Hands and feet mostly. Let’s get this done with.” Edra opened the car door and was immediately buffeted by salt spray and wind. The temptation to strip and soar spiked. He’d feel better as a dragon. Even though Jordan had tried tugging him toward the bed last night, he’d shifted so his body could work through the alcohol. If he hadn’t eaten the chicken, he wouldn’t have had the strength to shift back to human.

  Jordan’s hair was immediately swept up into spikes. If he had eyeliner on, he’d have looked more rock star than cop. But he probably wouldn’t appreciate that compliment at a crime scene. They made their way over to where a knot of uniformed police and paramedics were standing. A crowd was gathering and the boats were coming in.

  “Kells.” The officer greeted Jordan and ignored Edra. That was typical. “The victims said they heard several bangs and scratches. Then the boat took on water, fast. They radioed for help and got into the water. All had life vests on. Andrew Campbell went under and never resurfaced. They were picked up by another boat who came to their aid, and we’ve called all the boats in as a precaution.”

  “Did any of them see mermaids?” Jordan asked.

  “Yeah. They were apparently circling the boat and rocking it before it sank.”

  Edra’s hands went cold. He put them in his pockets before someone thought they were missing. “That sounds like mermaids.”

  “What else is it going to be? The Loch Ness Monster?” the cop snapped.

  Edra turned to the cop. “I doubt it very much, as she lives in Scotland.”

  The cop glared at him. Edra usually affected a more frequent blink because humans didn’t like it when he didn’t, but he didn’t care today. He held the man’s gaze. The cop’s lips moved and then he glanced at his notes, his cheeks reddening.

  “I’ll have to talk to the witnesses. We’re not sending divers out. There’s a storm coming.” Jordan moved away to talk to the three blanket-wrapped men.

  “Last thing the firefighters need is this damn wind.” The cop put his notebook in his pocket.

  Edra agreed with that, but it was all part of the process. “Have any mermaids come to the dock?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. I’d have shot them if I had.”

  He didn’t doubt that for a moment. “And how would you know you’ve shot the right one? If it were the wrong one, it would be murder.”

  “It’s not murder to kill a fish.”

  He could argue they weren’t fish, but it wouldn’t make a difference to this man. “I’ll make sure they stay well out of your way.”

  “You’ll bring them in for questioning. They killed a man.”

  “Or he drowned.” Edra shrugged and walked to the edge of the pier. He looked into the water, but there were no flashes of blue light and no pale faces staring back at him.

  He could fly out to the island and look like he cared about what had happened, but he hadn’t eaten enough to shift and fly. And he didn’t really care and didn’t have the inclination to fake caring.

  Darian’s killer was dead. Justice had been done.

  Jordan walked up, his footsteps so familiar Edra didn’t need to turn and check. “Anything?”

  “No. The sinking of a police boat was a trial run.”

  “Likely. After the storm, I’m going to need to talk to the water dragon. He can’t go tearing out the bottom of boats just so his mermaid love can… have a meal.”

  “You don’t believe in taking your date out for dinner?” They’d never gone out on a date just the two of them. It had always been bars or parties. Edra couldn’t even bear thinking about alcohol.

  Jordan squinted out across the water. “Not when humans are on the menu. Besides, I thought we agreed that Narv is being tricked.”

  “Yeah. Romance is dead.” And a dragon caught up in the thrall of mating could do all kinds of dumb things.

  “I would never say that. How about I buy you breakfast an
d you can tell me the best way to catch a water dragon and his mermaid.”

  “I wish I knew.” But he turned away from the water and walked back along the pier with Jordan.

  “What would you have done before?”

  There were some things that were best left to the sea and those that lived in it. “Sacrifices have to be made. The fishermen knew that. They chanced the weather, the tide, and the mermaids every time. We’d usually buy off the mermaids, send out a boat with a criminal.”

  “Which is exactly what happened today.” Jordan looked like he wanted to say more, but then he shook his head. “We don’t work that way.”

  “I know. You let the guilty walk.”

  “I have to follow due process.”

  “And I don’t.” Edra pulled his hands out of his pockets, since they were warm enough to be visible. “The mermaids stopped a satyr-driven blood feud.” That he’d acted as intermediary was best kept to himself.

  “You walk a dangerous line, Edra. If you slip, I won’t be able to catch you.”

  “Excuse me,” a man called out. “Can I get a statement? When will the boats be allowed back out? What’s going to happen to the mermaids? Do you think it’s dangerous to have them this close to humans?” Carlin Howard held his recorder out. “Why are you working with Mytho Servo so closely?”

  “I have nothing to say about an active investigation.” Jordan said the words as though they were so familiar it was boring.

  Carlin turned his attention to Edra. “You brought the dragons to the park. When will they leave?”

  “When their home isn’t on fire.”

  Jordan tugged at his sleeve.

  “Do you think mermaids are dangerous?”

  Edra stared at Carlin. He wanted to tell him how dangerous humans were to mythos, regardless of who they were, of the numerous murders and beatings that were overlooked because a human had been responsible. “Talk to Mytho Servo and get some stats.”

  Those statistics would never be published, because they revealed the truth. Humans were far more dangerous than any mytho, and they were dangerous even to other humans. He gave in to the tug on his sleeve and turned away.