Chapter 10

"Vampires are pretty mellow, most of them," Anderson replied. "He never took offense that we clearly were never meant to be together for the long haul. I can't wait to meet his wife."

"So how often are we going to run into exes who want you dead?"

Anderson shoved him into a cluster of smelly bushes. "Shut up, Wriggly. I don't care if you're asking from morbid curiosity or that mine-all-mine tendency you krakens have, it's none of your business. I'm your work partner, not your life-partner, so no getting clingy."

"I don't get clingy."

Shooting him a look that said I am thoroughly unimpressed by you, Anderson replied, "So you'd be perfectly okay if, say, that fancy tie bar went missing? How about if I rearranged all the contents of your desk-"

"Stop!" Lynn snapped, feeling twitchy and bitey and... tentacley just at the thought of someone mucking up all his stuff. "Anyone would be annoyed by that stuff. Even if it would piss me off, that doesn't mean I'm all clingy about you, Sparkleson."

"Yeah, yeah," Anderson said, but Lynn didn't miss the hurt quickly hidden by a toss of hair and a smirk. "Speaking of you and your stupidly expensive stuff, how are those fancy Gucci loafers going to like a hike through the woods?"

Lynn glared at the woods in question and mentally calculated how soon he could wheedle new shoes out of his sister. "I'll survive." He pointedly ignored Anderson's soft snicker. "But I'm not getting wet."

"You're a lake monster!"

"Sea monster," Lynn corrected, bristling. "I'm not some stupid fresh water poser, and I've already ruined one suit today. Like hell am I ruining another one. You can get wet, Sparkleson."

"Nobody likes a whiner." Anderson sauntered several steps head, picking carefully over the uneven ground, pausing briefly to throw a smirk over his shoulder. "Unless, of course, I'm making you whine and beg and plead."

"Nobody makes this sea monster beg," Lynn replied. "Least of all a magical sparkle pony."

Anderson flipped him off. "I'd make a stallion joke, but I refuse to lower myself to your level of humor."

Not bothering to dignify that with an answer, Lynn instead rolled his eyes and asked, "So where are you staying since you're all new in town?"

"The Tremont Hotel. Haven't had a chance to look for an apartment, yet. Any recommendations?"

"Several. What are you looking to pay in rent?"

"Not what you're paying." Anderson jumped neatly over a large, exposed tree root, then glanced at him, mouth tipped up at one corner.

Lynn sniffed. "It's rude to make assumptions about a person's income."

"I'm not making assumptions, I'm making mockery." Anderson dodged when Lynn attempted to swat him. "I've known you long enough to know you're as pissy about where you live as you are about what you wear." He grinned. "What's a monster of the deep doing with so much money, anyway? Do you go out on the weekend and sink ships, devour the sailors and steal their treasure to sell elsewhere? Wait, I know. You demand sacrifices-how did it go? Twelve chests of gold and jewels and twelve virgins? What do you suppose that comes to in the modern age?"

"Fuck you," Lynn said cheerfully, lunging forward, snagging Anderson, and jerking him close. He itched for a more useful form, a way to wrap and squeeze and hold tight. "I can't speak to the behavior of my ancestors, but my money is from an adoring, generous aunt who left me everything when she died several years ago combined with sound investments. Also, my sister is an in-house fashion consultant for a ridiculous hotel-spa-club-secret escort service thing. I get all kinds of deals and bargains."

Anderson laughed. "You gave up gold and jewels and virgins for an investment portfolio and an in with a fashion consultant? Some monster of the deep."

"I'd rather have slutty unicorns than virgins, though if you want me to chain you to a wall..."

"I don't do chains on a first date," Anderson said, hands settling on his shoulders, leaning in close to just barely rub their noses together, smelling like frosting slowly melting in sunshine.

Lynn brushed a soft kiss across his mouth. "Well, it's good to know you have standards."

"One of us probably should. Don't even try to tell me that Hugo Boss counts as a standard, because it doesn't." Lynn scowled, making Anderson snicker. After another soft, teasing kiss, he drew back and resumed walking.

Lynn reluctantly followed him, eager to get the job done and move on to vastly more interesting activities. He should have been more annoyed with himself about breaking his 'no sleeping with partners' rule, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

They rounded a bend in the walking path and came right up on an enormous man-made pond-big enough a small kraken could swim comfortably in half-shift form, or for others to swim or take out paddleboats or whatever.

He frowned when he spotted a familiar looking plant. "That's monkshood. Dragons aren't all that fond of it. If my half-brother had been around, he would have vacated immediately or torn all of it out." He pulled out his phone and took several pictures. "I don't really smell kraken."

"It's there, but faint. Exactly as Mikey said-like a kraken goes swimming here from time to time. I..." he wrinkled his nose. "I smell blood, but only barely. It's even fainter than the kraken. I could simply be wanting to smell it, and there's always the chance it's from Mikey." He hesitated. "There's life residue, but it's faint, like someone tried to get rid of it, but I can't read it much in human form."

"We should be certain," Lynn said. "I'll stand guard. You shift into true form and get us better info."

Anderson shot him an amused look. "You're a true-former?"

"Please tell me you're not one of those 'non-human forms are a curse' cultists."