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 cooking 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.
The male flew over the flames and the sparks kissed Edra’s bare skin, but all he could do was hiss and hope. They weren’t high enough, and the male was struggling. He was too wounded and dehydrated. Then the male tilted and wheeled around.
Selkie shit, was he returning to the nest?
Then Edra saw a clearing with three fire trucks. They were protecting a house. Water was being sprayed on the roof and on the flames that were creeping closer. The dragon hadn’t taken them that far from the fire. They were still in it.
The male was going down, aiming straight for a pool that was coated in a layer of ash. Edra sucked in a breath as they hit the water. The egg moved against him, and then the dragon clambered out of the pool. Edra’s grip was slippery, but he held on until the dragon came to a stop by the hose. The men on the hose were no longer paying attention to the water or the fire. One dropped the hose and ran, and the other struggled to maintain control, his gaze on the dragon as though it were about to eat him. The male put his claw over the hose and started to drink from the end like a dog in a park.
Edra eased his grip on the dragon’s leg and stepped back, still clutching the egg. The male, without even looking, stretched out a wing and scooped Edra closer. This last egg wasn’t leaving the male’s sight.
There were several firemen watching now, and one brave one still held the hose that the dragon was drinking from.
“Can I get some water?” Was he even visible? It was easier to be visible when hot, but in human form, he had problems controlling his visibility when he was stressed. He glanced at his skin, and it was more red than silver. He was burned.
“The dragon.” One of the men pointed.
“Was trapped in the fire. I got him and the egg out. Can I get a drink?” Or did he have to drink from the hose like the dragon? Drool dripped on the ground and water that missed the dragon’s mouth splashed on the grass. Even with the dragon’s foot on the hose, there was too much water for Edra to drink.
“Will the mama be pissed if we come close?”
“This is the father.”
“How does that work?”
Edra was about two heartbeats from shifting and roaring at them—at least then his skin wouldn’t feel a size too tight—but he didn’t have the energy. “I’m Knight Tendric with Mytho Servo, and you’re very lucky I saved the dragon and his egg. So can I get some water or do I need to call up my people?”
Not that his people would be able to do much. Mythological Services helped mythos integrate. His job was to liaise with the cops, or more specifically, with Jordan.
A couple of men were ordered forward with bottles of water and a blanket. Why he needed a blanket in the middle of a bush fire, Edra wasn’t sure. The man draped it over Edra’s shoulders, but his eyes were on the bus-sized dragon still lapping at the water.
The male wasn’t flying anywhere. He would be too full.
Edra shifted the egg so he could drink the opened bottle of water, and when that was empty, he took the second one and drank that too. His mouth still tasted like ash, but he felt less like jerky and more like a roast.
“We’ve got to move out of here. The fire’s turning. Get that up in the air,” the man in charge said, as though Edra had some kind of control over the dragon.
“He’s too injured to fly any farther.” If the fire was turning, there wasn’t time to explain dragon digestion to a human. But it was mostly the truth. The cuts on the dragon’s side had ripped open and were bleeding. His scales were dull and some had flaked off. He was in poor condition. When was the last time Edra had seen him? Not for a while, he realized. He’d only seen the female, and she’d told him the male was hunting. Clearly he’d been nesting and the eggs were closer to hatching than he’d first thought. Though trying to ask a dragon when the eggs were laid was like trying to teach a manticore to cook—the manticore would get frustrated and eat you first.
The fireman looked at him, and Edra stared back.
“Then how the fuck do we move it?”
Edra glanced up at the dragon and then back at the three fire trucks. He didn’t want to do any more flying. He was burned and tired and could do with a sit down and a meal, but before he did any of that, he had the egg to deliver to the new nest. “How much weight can your trucks carry?”