Gregor

Lockers clattered open or slammed shut as one patrol shift came in, and the next was preparing to head out. I and a couple of others had come in from the gym. While I had fond memories of the days I had worn the white and green public safety patrol uniform, I was glad to be a detective with the option to wear whatever color slacks I wanted.

I opened my locker and grabbed my toiletries, a towel, and headed for the shower stalls. When I got back, I noticed a new guy unpacking his things into a locker a few down from mine. He had light brown hair, emerald green eyes, a smattering of freckles across his sun-kissed white skin, and a decent build. He was slightly shorter than my six-foot self. He had on a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. I tried not to notice any other details, though, as he bent over, I couldn’t help but mentally approve of the view.

“First day?” I asked. I tried to be friendly rather than stand there and ogle the guy. Besides, I had a boyfriend at home. Keith’s eyes wandered enough for both of us. If I was honest with myself, it wasn’t just Keith’s eyes, but we’d gotten through that hiccup in our relationship.

“Yeah.” He said. Then came over and offered his hand. “Xavior Brantley.”

“Gregor Lyndon, or Greg,” Xavior moved back to his locker and continued to unpack while I tried to dress and glance at him while trying not to at the same time. He had the projectile safety vest, some restrains, and a few packs of stop-goo. But I didn’t see a uniform. When he pulled a shield out and hung it around his neck, it clicked.

“Ah, so you’re the new dick,” I said with a smirk as I finished buttoning my shirt. I pulled my shield from the locker shelf and clipped it onto my belt.

“Uh,” He looked at me and laughed. “Yeah, guess so.”

“Where were you last?”

“Nob Hill.”

“That’s pretty cushy. Why did you come over here to Jefferson?” I closed up my locker and pressed my thumb to the lock. It flashed and gave a beep to let me know it was secure.

“Thought it might be nice to help people instead of sitting around an office all day responding to missing familiars and the occasional prank magic trick from the local teens.”

Jefferson was a cross-section of beings living close together in apartment buildings or walk-ups that weren’t always up to code for some of the powers, magic, or species that lived there. The patrols helped a lot with mundane things, like parking violations or magical interference complaints.

“Which division are you in?” I asked.

“General support,” he said as he shut his locker and secured it.

The general support group handled and investigated: theft, neighbor disputes, property disputes, criminal trespassing, arson, crowd management, and other odd jobs that patrols or specialized divisions didn’t cover.

I nodded. “Me too. The GS Staff briefing is in five minutes. I’m going to grab some caffeine, and I’ll see you there.”

“Nice to meet you, Greg,” Xavior said as he smiled at me, and I gave a smile and nodded back but tried to keep the odd pang of attraction I felt from making things awkward. But it seemed awkward would rule the day.

Captain Lang was all business this morning as he started the briefing. His dark suit accented his dark hair and eyes. He was more dressed up than usual, which meant he'd come from a city briefing.

“Alright, a few notes before I hand out assignments for today. There is a new Dreamweaver drug floating around the community. It’s addictive, and while most folks experimenting with it are staying indoors, some become disoriented enough to wander into traffic or think they can fly when they don’t have wings.

“Signs that someone is using are general confusion along with a light show in their irises. Use stop-goo if you think the individual might be in a dangerous situation, but use it as a last resort. We don’t know how goo magic interacts with this stuff yet. Talk them down if you can or herd them back to a safe location.”

Captain Lang continued. “On a lighter note, we have a new detective starting today. Detective Xavior Brantley,” Xavior stood up from where he was. “He has an extensive background in research and investigation and has training as a CSI. He comes to us from Nob Hill Public Safety.”

There were various nods and hello’s along with handshakes from the detectives sitting near him. As Captain Lang gave out assignments, various working pairs left the meeting room. When I didn’t get one, and Xavior was still in the room, I realized the captain had signed me up for training duty.

I walked up to the podium, and the captain was chatting with Xavior. “Detective Lyndon, have you met Detective Brantley yet?”

“Yeah, a little before the meeting,” I nodded to them both.

“Good. I’d like the two of you to work together. Get Brantley up-to-speed with the division, the department, your current caseload, and we’ll do an eval in thirty days.”

I smiled at Captain Lang, “No problem, Captain.”

“Good,” Lang said, then turned to Xavior. “If you need anything, let me know. Detective Lyndon is one of our seniors here, so you’ll be in good hands.” I tried not to think about what my hands might want to do and kept them in my pockets. It was never a good idea to get involved with someone at work. I reminded myself that I could do things later with Keith since he was off tonight.

“Thanks, Captain,” Xavior said. The captain walked out and left us in the briefing room.

“You can call me Xavior or Brantley if you want, but my last name always seems pretentious as fuck to me.”

I laughed a little at that. It sounded pretentious, but unless Xavior wanted to change it, that’s likely what I’d use. “Greg or Lyndon is fine with me. Most people use last names around here, so you’ll probably want to get used to it.”

I was about to open my mouth to give a quick rundown on my current cases when Xavior stepped a little closer and dropped his voice.

“While I’m flattered, and the feeling is mutual by the way; If we’d met under different circumstances, I’d certainly be interested. But it’s my first day, hmm? Maybe we should take things a little slow,” he said.

I blinked. The sound of his voice traveled my spine southward while his words tumbled around in my brain as I tried to understand what he said. “What?”

“You’re attracted to me. I can smell it. I’ve had the scent in my nose since the locker room. Like I said, I’m flattered, and I also find you attractive. But since we have to work together, we should probably try to keep it professional.”

“Smell?” All the other words were swimming around in my head, but that one seemed to stick the most. I smelled like attraction? I mean, sure, I was attracted to him, but I had a boyfriend. It also occurred to me that his forwardness had reduced me to one-word sentences. I was surprised how fast he’d gotten under my skin.

“I’m a dragon. Like most shifters and weres, we have a heightened sense of smell for some things. Dragons key in on emotional ones, or ones that give off pheromones,” Xavior said.

That snapped me out of my awkward daze. “Oh, no.”

“Oh yes,” Xavior said, with a slightly amused expression on his face. He didn’t understand. This was not good news. This was bad, really bad.

“No, you don’t understand. This,” I said as I pointed between him and me, “won’t work.”

“Why not? Are you a speciesist?” I watched him instantly change from flirtatious to irritated. What was even more confusing was that he was as attractive as he was before, if not more so.

“No, absolutely not.” My hand went to my forehead. How do I explain that I was from a family order given a curse to mortally wound dragons? Otherwise, dragons were one of the few things in the world that were indestructible. I hadn’t divulged that information to the captain because there weren’t any dragons that I knew of in the area until now, and we didn’t have any in the department until this moment. “It’s not safe for you to work with me.” I dropped my hand and tried to reason with him while not explaining why. I could see it wasn’t working.

“Not safe?” That got his attention. “You’re exaggerating a bit, aren’t you? I mean, I’ve worked with some pretty high leveled mages and even a necromancer once. I doubt there would be anyone on staff that could actually harm me….” He looked me over, and some hint of an idea surfaced. I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed and his head tilted. “There’s only one family that could harm a dragon. And most of that family, last I knew, lived in Europe.”

“There is a small branch of that family here on the west coast. In Washington State,” I said, letting him fill in the gaps. I knew which family he was talking about. There was only one family in Europe known as dragon slayers.

“You’re a Saint George Knight?” Xavior asked with some surprise in his voice.

I nodded. “Now, do you see why this would be a bad idea?”

“Not really, no,” Xavior said as he shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest, which drew my eyes to that area for a split second before my confusion at what he said finally surfaced. I lifted my eyes back to his face to ward off any other odd pulls of attraction, but that didn’t work very well either.

“What?” I clenched my hands and tried to understand what he was saying. Did this dragon have a death wish? “Of course, it is. The last thing I’d want to happen is for you to get hurt because of me.”

Xavior’s mild manor shifted to a smirk. “So you do like me. I was worried for a minute that I’d been completely off about that, or that you hadn’t realized you were attracted to me, which would have been more awkward….”

I held up my hands toward him as if to ward off his words or put up a defense toward his charm and apparent lack of self-preservation. “Look. First of all, I have a boyfriend. Latent attraction aside,” I couldn’t believe I’d admitted that out loud. I pushed through my mild embarrassment so I could get him to understand.

I used my hands to illustrate a kind of exchange between us, “This won’t happen. I’m in a committed relationship.” I dropped my hands and shifted to turn away from him. I needed out of the room and to find Captain Lang immediately. “Second, I’m cursed with an ability that can harm you. Lethally harm you. It would be nearly criminal negligence for us to work together.” I took a few steps toward the door.

“Lyndon.” He sighed. “Greg.”

My name on his lips stopped my forward movement. It had some a kind of wistfulness to it. A hint of concern and affection that I used to hear in Keith’s voice. “What?” I wanted to be irritated, but my reply was more of a sigh, and I wanted to kick myself for it.

“I’m three hundred and seventy-three years old. Unless you have some spear nearby or some compulsion to harm dragons, I think we’ll be fine. Besides, what’s life without a little spice in it?”

I didn’t know if he thought “spice” was my lack of control over my libido or the fact that he didn’t care that I was the one thing that could cause him real harm. I looked back at him, and based on the look on his face. My guess was both. “I’m stating now that I think this is a bad idea.”

“And I’m telling you, unless you’re planning on telling the captain what you just told me, I accept the risk,” Xavior said. “So, partner,” He walked over and slapped my shoulder. “Let’s get to work.”

I watched as he walked past me and out to the office area. I shook my head and followed. It was the closest I’d ever come to a dragon in real life. I was desperate to protect him, and at the same time, do things to him that had nothing to do with protecting him from me.