A warm welcome to author TJ Nichols visiting Love Bytes today to talk about new release “Greed and Other Dangers”, Mytho book 2.
Turning up the heat
I’m an Australian author, and I grew up in Tasmania. As a teen the house I lived in came very close to burning down—my family was vacuuming up ash and putting out spot fires in the surrounding bushland for weeks afterwards.
The house I’m living in was threatened by fires a few years ago. We didn’t get evacuated, but I have some great photos of the flames at the end of the street.
Like Australia, California also has terrible fires during summer. Because of the setting, I knew that in one of the Mytho books it would be summer and that things would need to burn.
What better way than to have the greater dragons involved?
But not even a dragon could survive the intensity of a bush fire. So a rescue must be planned…
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?”
Blurb:
Dragon shifter Edra has always lived to serve and protect—in ages past, as a knight, and in the modern world as a mytho liaison to the San Francisco PD. Behind the scenes he safeguards the mythos community from scandal—and further human hatred. When the eggs of a rare greater dragon are stolen, Edra must find and return them before the mother razes the city.
Edra’s partner, Jordan, has just been promoted, and he’s on the trail of several stolen mythos artifacts. Together, they track the eggs to a colony of mermaids living in the bay near Alcatraz Island.
But trying to separate a mermaid from her treasure is asking for trouble.
As Edra and Jordan grow closer, they test the bounds of human-mythos relationships. But Jordan isn’t ready to mate for life, and Edra won’t pretend to be human for Jordan’s friends. With the hills on fire and a storm brewing in the bay—and in their bed—something’s got to give.
Buy links:
TJ Nichols is an avid runner and martial arts enthusiast who first started writing as child. Many years later while working as a civil designer, TJ decided to pick up a pen and start writing again. Having grown up reading thrillers and fantasy novels, it’s no surprise that mixing danger and magic comes so easily. Writing urban fantasy allows TJ to bring magic to the every day. TJ is the author of the Studies in Demonology series and the Mytho urban fantasy series.
With one cat acting as a supervisor, TJ has gone from designing roads to building worlds and wouldn’t have it any other way. After traveling all over the world TJ now lives in Perth, Western Australia.
You can find TJ at: