“I’m going to kill him!” That was the thought in Max’s head as he landed in the alley where Blake stood, holding an unconscious human in one arm and fending off another human woman, who was apparently attempting to brain Blake with an empty can that had once held some concoction humans thought of as food.

The woman with the can changed her mind about beating Blake with that thing and tossed it at his head. Max groaned. Just what he needed: a human woman with a tin can and some rage issues. He transformed and shouted, “Stop!”

The woman that had fainted opened her eyes. She clutched some wooden weapon in her fingers and as fast as her eyes opened, her hands moved. The hunk of wood she held came down, right onto his shoulder. He roared out, “Dammit! What the hell are you doing Blake?”

Blake belched fire and slapped a fist to his chest. “Sorry; coffee.”

Now he was really pissed. Blake could cause some real disaster here by opening the portal between their world and the world of humans, and all he had to say for himself was coffee? He batted the weapon-wielding woman to one side. She shouted something that sounded like a curse, or an opinion on his manhood. He ignored that. “We’re going. Now.”

Blake shook his head. “Not without her.” He reached for the fainting, weapon-leveling one. Max had no idea what Blake wanted with her; she was a mess! Her hair was flying out of some weird thing she had it held up in, her shoe was broken, and she had the unmistakable stench of garbage hanging all over her. Not to mention she was clearly pissed off, entirely unwilling to go anywhere with Blake, and currently trying to brain Blake with that thing she held.

Blake ducked to the right, shot an arm out, and curled it around her slim waist. “She’s perfect!”

For what? Max couldn’t begin to fathom the answer to that question. He didn’t have time to ask it either because just then the other woman, the one with the tendency to throw cans, screamed, “Let her go, you filthy sonofabitch, or I’ll kill you!” and launched herself at Blake.

Shit. Whatever this was, he would have to sort it out in Dragon World. Max looked up at the sky. The first rents in the fabric that created the portals between this world and his and Blake’s showed plainly, and there was no time left to figure this out here and now. He gathered his magic, flung it, and grabbed Blake, who was still clinging to the fainting woman. The crazy woman had latched onto Blake’s hair and was either trying to yank it all out of his head or use it to guide him away from the other woman.

The three of them made a hard burden, and a heavy one, but he didn’t have time to worry about that either. The portals were closing, and there was no way he was going to be stuck in the humans’ world for all eternity if he could help it. He knew that there were some were-dragons who had crossed, stayed too long, and never had the ability to return, and he didn’t intend to be one of them.

He changed, letting his wings beat upward, as his talons grabbed Blake and the women. He had to hurry, and he had to worry about those flailing thrashing banshees now trying to escape both his grip and Blake’s.

The portal opened, and then he was through it, his wings carrying them upward and higher and right into Dragon World.

The world he knew and loved was now in his sights: all blazing greens and soft blues, unpolluted skies, and craggy peaks of mountains. Blake shouted, “Let me change!”

“Not on your life.” The words came from Max’s mouth even as he realized how stupid he was being. He was overburdened and in danger of dropping the three, but to let Blake go while the portal was still open was unthinkable. The only thing keeping Blake from changing right then was the pact between their clans, and Blake’s lack of magical ability while in human guise.

Blake had caused him enough trouble for one day, and no way was he giving him the chance to get back to the human world and possibly cause the portal to shatter and remain open forever! The humans were a nuisance, and he was not about to have any of them meddling in his world.

Shit. He’d brought two with them. He looked down, wondering if it would be easier to just drop all three of them in the vast ranges of the mountains. The woman who’d tried to hit him with the heavy stick looked up just then and he realized, painfully and sharply, that not only was she not screaming, she was beautiful—and clinging to him with real fervor.

What the hell was I thinking? His mood soured even further. This was not the best day, or even the day he had planned to have. He had planned to try to hammer out some sort of truce between his clan and the war-hungry orcs to the west. Instead he had had to go get Blake before he really screwed things up, and now he was stuck with Blake and two human women. One of whom was trying to bite his leg!

He growled out, “I will drop you on your head!”

The tin-can-tossing human immediately stopped trying to gnaw his leg off. Max, angrier than ever, settled onto the earth of his world and stared upward as the portal began to close. He had pinned Blake below his claws, but the women? They ran. Or tried to. The one with the broken heel stumbled, tripped, went down, got up with some help from her friend, and tried to run again.

Blake squirmed and wriggled. “Damn you, Max!”

Max took his foot off Blake’s neck and changed. He said, “What were you doing, exactly? You know the time is broken in that stream. You could have been lost there forever, or worse, you could have allowed them to come through.”

Blake stood, making a big show of dusting off his body. He said, “I was trying to get a wife, thank you very much.”

Max choked. “I beg your pardon?”

Blake said, “My clan has no females left. We need breed stock. Humans breed fast, and I went to get one.”

Max observed the two human women fleeing. “Looks like they don’t want you.”

Blake took off. Max groaned and went after Blake. This was ridiculous. The last thing he needed, in fact. He was sick and tired of dealing with Blake and would have killed him a long time before if the pact didn’t force him not to. That goddamn pact had not taken into account that Blake was an idiot, and a dangerous one at that!

The women stopped running because there was a ledge, and then nothing but empty space. They stood there hugging each other and staring at him and Blake, and Max groaned again as one of them craned her neck to stare down at the falls below like she was really considering if they could survive the jump.

They couldn’t. He could guarantee that for them.

Blake said, “Well then.” Then he changed. The fainter screamed, bent over, grabbed a large rock, and threw it. She had terrible aim it seemed because that rock hit Max right in the temple, making him dizzy and pissed off at the same time.

He glowered at her. “Stop that. If you hit me again, either of you, I will throw you off that cliff myself. I do not care for humans in the first place. I have no intention of being caught in a war with them.”

He turned, his wings spreading from his back and then he took flight, leaving Blake to deal with his own mess. He had bigger worries than the humans and Blake!