“I don’t care if you see a prophecy of him sprouting wings like a 747, O. My son is not jumping through a portal 300 feet above ground and hoping that Amos can catch him in his dragon claws on the other side.” Mel’s voice was rising in both pitch and aggression, she knew she needed to calm down. She wasn’t making the situation any better, but also, yelling at O felt like shit.

“Okay. Yeah. You’re right. We’re not putting him in danger like that.” O nodded his head and scratched at his light stubble, thinking hard. “And there’s no telling whether or not I’ll be able to fly on my wing, so Amos, you’re gonna have to go get him. Bring him back here, okay?”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah. He lives in a cabin on the south side of a big prairie about two miles west from the portal. You’ll know it’s him because he’ll be the one trying to battle you in midair for coming onto his property.” O leaned toward Ike in a fake whisper. “He’s a wee bit overprotective of his privacy.”

Amos pressed a hand to his temple for a second. “And you say that this is the only way to move forward? We can’t approach Idris without talking to your dad first?”

O nodded. Amos sighed and then started stripping his clothes off.

“Okay! Wow.” Mel and Ike turned away. But turned back just in time to see Amos dive off the cliff, straight into the portal, and immediately transform into a gigantic, amber dragon on the other side. He swooped out of view.

The sun creeped across the sky as the three of them waited atop the hill. O and Ike tinkered away on their friendship bracelets, chatting about the movie they’d watched last night. Mel lay on her back and watched the leaves. She tried not to let her mind stray too far from the moment. If she let it wind out too far, she’d end up panicking.

She looked up as she heard the heavy swooping of wings making wind. The three of them sprang to their feet and peered through the portal. There was Amos’ dragon, amber and glinting in the sun. He gained a good deal of speed and catapulted himself through the air toward the portal. Halfway through, he shifted to his human form, the inertia from the lunge flinging him safely onto the outcropping.

Amos shook his head like a dog and reached for his clothes. The other three peered back through the portal, trying to catch a glimpse of what was there. A prism of light flashed at them. Something bright was reflecting colors. A light green dragon. The color of O’s eyes, Mel realized. He was going to do the same move that Amos had. Catapulting himself through the portal and shifting on the fly.

She watched as the majestic creature flew at breakneck speed toward the portal between the realms. He had the speed. She held her breath. He’d made it to the portal, he was jetting through. But something was wrong, the dragon wasn’t shifting in time. He was still a dragon coming through the other side. It wasn’t right. Mel felt it in her bones as the massive green dragon landed with a heavy thump on the outcropping where they all stood.

“Dad! No!” O screamed.

The next second, the human realm rejected a grown adult dragon and it was almost as if he were getting expelled from the realm. O’s father was sucked backward toward the portal in a whirl of prismed color. But the mighty dragon lost his footing as he flew backward and his giant tail hit the cliff with a smack.

Mel felt the earth quake under her feet. She felt rock split in two. She felt the sky become the ground become the sky again as she tumbled off into the air. She heard Ike’s scream as her hair billowed all around her. She was falling in slow motion and for a second her eyes zeroed in on the friendship bracelets on her wrist. O would take care of Ike, she knew that.

But she didn’t want to leave O. And she didn’t want to leave her boy. Mel clawed at the air on her way down and she felt the disorienting compression of the portal, she was falling through the dragon realm now. The cliff and her son were shrinking away, into a window in the sky. Something else came through the window, and she tried to concentrate on it as she fell. But she couldn’t focus against all the wind, her hair whipping around her.

All she could see was a flash of turquoise blue light streaking toward her like a meteor. Mel tumbled sideways and saw the ground rising up to meet her. She held her breath, held back a scream. She wouldn’t close her eyes. She wouldn’t be scared. Even now.

Bracing herself for impact, Mel was completely unprepared for the claws that clamped around her belly. Too tight. But she wasn’t complaining as they greatly slowed her free fall. She felt the rhythmic beat of wings above her head and she craned around to look and see.

It was O in his dragon form. He held her clutched in one mighty claw, his talons cutting into her, breaking the skin, but she didn’t care. He was saving her. His wings were flung out, stretching and straining, doing everything they could to catch wind. His left wing, puckered and holey, was making them bob and dip in the air. It was the best he could do just to slow down their free fall.

But slow them he did as he gritted his teeth in what she could only assume was terrible, blinding pain. She glanced at the ground. They were still falling too fast. If they landed now, she’d be crushed. O strained again and this time they started spinning to earth like dandelion seeds.

O beat his wings again. And again. A roar unlike any she’d ever heard exploded out of him. It shook her bones. The dragon gnashed his teeth and beat his wings again. And then, out from the cracks of his clenched teeth, flames licked at the air. O whipped his dragon head to one side. Lifted his wings high, and beat them downward. Finally, he slowed their fall.

Pumping his wings more, trying to find a safe place to land, Mel kept her eyes on her man. He was straining against the pain still but he was able to set her gently on the ground. He landed rather heavily next to her. About 500 feet away, the celery green dragon landed as well, began lumbering over to them.

O raised his dragon’s head to the sky, opened his jaws, and let loose a stream of roaring fire 30 feet long.

“Holy shit!” Mel screeched as she jumped backward.

“Man, that felt good.”

“What the hell was that?” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

O instantly shifted back to his human form before he whisked her around in a circle, nuzzling his face into her neck. “I could only do that because you were in mortal danger. And because you’re my true mate.”

“What’s that mean?”

O’s father was barreling over to them at high speed. “They’re coming!” he yelled over the sound of his pounding footsteps. “They saw us! They’re coming!”

O turned to see who his father was talking about and the color left his face. “Okay. Wow. Holy guacamole. Foot soldiers for the king. They must have been standing watch over the area.” O immediately started shifting back to dragon form. “Explanations on true mate fire are gonna have to wait until later. We gotta jet.”

O extended a dragon claw and snatched her up off the ground in one smooth move. His wings were trembling with the weight of his tremendous body and for a second, Mel was worried that they weren’t going to be able to leave the ground. But then, O’s father was there, heaving a shoulder under his son and flinging him into the air.

He joined his son in the air and hoisted him again. Between the two of them, they were making steady progress toward the portal. Mel looked up, scanning the sky for the foot soldiers O had been talking about. Her heart shrank to the size of a pin when she realized there were thirty or so dragons closing in on them fast.

One in particular was faster than the others. He jetted toward them, trying to cut off their progress. But O’s father was ready for him. He let go of O and Mel felt the stomach-dropping dip toward the ground. But O steadied them in time for Mel to see O’s father rear back and kick the other dragon right out of the sky. He feathered toward the ground like a dead pigeon.

O’s father flanked them and they started lifting again. The portal was only fifty feet away now. Forty. Thirty. Mel held her breath and allowed herself to hope. She tried to ignore the pain in her skin where O’s claws bit into her. He was straining to keep them afloat. Now they were twenty feet away.

It was at that moment, though, that two more of the foot soldiers caught up to them. They were twin blue dragons, lunging forward with their claws outstretched. Mel felt her life flash before her.

“Do the mate fire thingy!” she screamed up at O. But he was already one step ahead of her, rearing his head back, opening wide, and letting loose a stream of hellfire so hot, Mel felt it singeing her clothes.

The two blue dragons immediately quailed from the heat, one of them dodging the fire, the other one ricocheting off the stream. The two of them flew a great circle and were plunging through the air for round two, but the twin fighters found absolutely nothing where their quarry had just been. There was no one in the sky but the two of them and the other soldiers in the distance.

As they looked to their left, all they saw was the fire again, this time burning the portal to a crisp.