We made it to land in a little over thirty hours, rested in some place called Dustwallow Marsh, and then took back to the air. Even though Brath continued to be somewhat friendly, something about Dustwallow really bothered him, not that he would tell me what.

When we first came in sight of land, the angle made it look like we were heading south, but then, I realize that was probably just me being confused. Or maybe he'd gotten turned around a bit while flying over nothing but ocean.

Anyway, we came to shore near this wood that looked kind of burnt out and empty. I think it was the emptiness that bothered Brath, because he circled low once and then started cursing under this breath and flew back up.

I was kind of surprised, you know, because it seemed like a large empty place would be great for us, since I figured Brath was probably wanting to avoid largely populated areas, so that people wouldn't go, "Oh, it's a black dragon. Let's kill it."

When I tried to ask him about it as we were turning in for the night, he just nuzzled me innocently. I should have known something was up. I mean, why would he be all cuddly all of a sudden? And even if that hadn't tipped me off, his next question should have.

As I was curling up on a little mound of leaves I'd made for myself—I didn't want to sleep against Brath again, since it'd left me so cramped before—he abruptly sat next to me in human form, a simple smile on his lips.

"I don't suppose there'd be room in your world for a lone, little dragon, such as myself?" He hesitated for a moment before adding, "After we save it, of course."

I remember eyeing him and wondering what was going on. Had the tempest done something to his head? "Um…what?"

Even as I was about to ask what was with his sudden interest in leaving behind the world he'd been talking about guarding from life, he just smiled and patted my arm, sprawling out, still in human form, near me.

"No need to decide right now, hmm? Just…think about it. I could be quite useful, I think. I've dealt with my share of demons, after all. And, when all is said and done, I could live quite happily in some forest where your species never travels."

Something was definitely going on, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what. When I started to ask him if something had happened—I don't know when it would have—he just said he was growing fond of me. And then he offered to hold me while I slept, saying his shoulder would be softer than the ground, and I edged away from him. He seemed disappointed and I was up half the night wondering if I'd done something to lead this crazy dragon to believe that I had a thing for him.

I mean, he kind of struck me as a sociopath, right? Though, I guess it wouldn't really be the same thing, since he's a dragon…or maybe it would. I don't really know how dragon psychology would relate to its human counterpart. But my point is that supposedly if sociopaths actually get attached to something, they get kind of fixated. Yes, I may be basing this assumption off of this Lifetime movie my dad and I ended up watching—my mom had started and then walked away saying Lifetime movies are too 'worst-case-scenario-y', and my dad and I had come in to watch something with her as a family, and we just kind of…stuck around to make fun of it. Like, there were a few scenes that we got bored with the drama and started making our own dialogue for, which was really fun.

But anyway. The moral of the movie was that sociopaths are dangerous, especially if they think they love you. Because they get like super jealous or something. Honestly, I don't remember the whole plot of the movie, but for the next week, my dad would jokingly great me whenever he came home from work by asking if I'd stayed away from the local sociopaths. My dad's humor is…kind of strange.

I wonder if he's still alive.

Anyway, the last thing I needed was some dragon following me home wanting to be best buddies. I mean, if I were some genius, I could see manipulating him into helping saving my world, but if I did that as me, I wouldn't know how to get rid of him later.

I ended up drifting off and dreaming about getting married to some generic guy, only to have Brath the dragon storm in, eat my to-be-husband, and then fly off with me in his clutches into a blood red sunset. I suppose it was a nice change of pace from my typical nightmares.

In the morning, I was further surprised that Brath had breakfast waiting for me and had drawn a little map of the continent we were on in the dirt. When he was certain that I was awake enough to retain information, he tapped a little X.

"We are here…" He let his finger trail over the earth to a second X. "Your draenei are here." He paused, to make sure I was paying attention. His behavior was so odd, but then, I just figured maybe he was feeling giddy about being free soon or something. "If we flew straight there, we'd end up going over a Horde city and that would lead to a rather poor day for the both of us."

I munched on my breakfast, wondering what kind of animal it was. "Because they'd recognize you as a bad dragon?"

His eye twitched for a moment and he curled his hand into a fist, still looking at the dirt map. However, he abruptly tapped the spot where the Horde city was located. "There is that, I suppose. However, they will see you as a human from this world from a distance and shoot us down. We'd both be dead before we hit the earth."

I nodded. I didn't get why he was explaining this to me. I mean, I'm horrible with directions, so he could just tell me that we'd been flying straight north. Even if he went straight south, I'd probably believe him.

He drew a second line through the ground, arcing it slightly at the bottom so that it looked like something off an exponential growth chart. "I'm going to fly us west and then up, so as to avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness. Does this suit you?"

I stared at him blankly. Did it matter if it did? It wasn't like I could tell him to screw off and get my other dragon to take me a better route. "Sure, I guess."

He flashed a cheerful smile my way and then abruptly ran his fingers through his map until it looked like a whole lot of nothing. As he did that, I tilted my head slowly to the side. He didn't want anyone to find a map saying what direction we'd gone in.

"Are we being followed?"

His head snapped up toward me. "What?"

"Did that guy who was supposed to own you or whatever come after us?" That thought hadn't occurred to me until the words left my lips. Then my eyes widened. Crap. What if he was? I wouldn't be able to defend Brath from some magic wielding hero.

And then it dawned on me that if any of the heroes found out I'd helped a black dragon, they'd probably leave my world to rot, figuring it was an act of war or something. I was starting to go into panic mode, imagining all the horrific possibilities that might be about to be set in motion, when Brath patted my hand gently.

My gaze snapped toward him. "I…" he hesitated and glanced around. "There is a rumor that there is a rogue out and about, taking care of my flight." When I stared at him blankly, he frowned. "Killing us."

Oh. That might explain the sudden interest in moving to a new world.

"I hadn't put much stock in it," he shrugged, trying to force his actions to look casual. "But…I have reason to believe there might be more truth in it than I'd realized." I guess the relief showed on my face, because he furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head.

"Oh, sorry," I tried to wave off his confusion. "I'm just happy you don't have some weird thing for me…" When he still seemed confused, I felt super stupid…and relieved that he was just a manipulative jerk.

I mean, hello? He's a dragon. Why would he be interested in a human? He probably looks for things like wingspan and…scale color or whatever in a girlfriend. Now that I knew he wasn't going to stalk me and eat any boyfriends I might get to keep me from getting close to anyone besides him, I felt really dumb. And I wasn't about to tell him how I'd misread his actions, so that he could be a jerk about it. He definitely seemed like the kind who would rub it in my face.

I wasn't going to tell him, but I think he reads facial expression better than he understands verbal communication, because he abruptly got this sly grin and leaned toward me. "Were you hoping for a more…intimate reason?"

It was my turn for my eye to twitch. I hated that I needed his help. If I could have, I'd have walked off into the woods and ditched him, reins and all.

He shrugged, still grinning as he appraised me. "If you let me help you, you wouldn't need to remove my reins until we reached your world. That way, you could just tell people I'm your mount."

I tried not to read any double meanings into that, hoping that he wasn't trying to put any in there. However, the damage had been done and it was super awkward for the rest of our breakfast break.

We'd been in the air for a little over an hour, when it happened.

I was still trying to forget that screwing with my head might be Brath's new favorite pastime, when out of nowhere, something shot into Brath's wing. He let out a roar, which scared the crap out of me, and we dropped from the sky.

Weighing considerably more than me, as we fell, I totally came out of the saddle. However, one of my feet caught in its stirrup, making sure I plummeted as fast as my ride. When we got close to the ground, Brath managed to catch himself in the air, despite the pain in his wing, and he flapped back into control a few feet above the ground.

Unfortunately, I wasn't really on him anymore, so I just kept going. I suppose it's a lucky break—no pun intended—that my foot was caught in the stirrup, because it snapped me to a stop before I could become a pancake. It also snapped my bones.

Same leg that keeps getting hurt, by the way.

Well, I could hear Brath cursing as I finally fell free from the stirrup and thudded the last few feet into the ground, knocking the wind out of me. He landed beside me and I could see a fretful look on his scaly face. "Climb back on—hurry!"

Even as I tried to ignore the awkward numbness in my ankle and reach for him, a freakin' boomerang shot into his wing and he roared again, rearing back from me and then crouching low to the ground. As I tried to register what was happening, another dragon leapt over from somewhere behind me, its scales a brilliant red, and tackled Brath to the ground.

I could hear teeth snapping and claws digging into scales and dirt, but that scuffle lost out to my interest as I was jerked around to face the wielder of the weapon.

My eyes widened as I stared up at the human man who'd been such a jerk to me in Booty Bay. The one who had mocked that I didn't know where home was when I'd asked for help.

Even as I looked up at him, slack jawed, he stared back down at me with earnest surprise. Guess he didn't expect to see little old, gutter speaking me ever again. As it registered that he might be just about the worst human that I could have run into, I heard more voices crying out and tried to look past him.

However, before I could make out who else was joining our little tussle, he squatted down in front of me, and I felt something sharp pressing against my throat. "You'd better have a damn good reason for stealing that drake."

As I floundered and tried to think past the sharp pointing thing at my neck, the dragon fight came to us. They were rolling around, slamming each other into the ground or something, because one of their tails swiped us and sent me flying. The guy with the knife jumped out of the way and was back to me like nothing had happened.

However, even as he asked me again what had happened, I felt the world spinning. As I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering why I was suddenly seeing several of him, moving closer and further from one another like an accordion, he frowned and looked me over. He got this, 'oh shit' look on his face when he saw my arm and I followed his gaze to see a small cut on my bicep.

Even as I wondered why such a simple injury would matter—especially with my ankle being broken—I noticed a light green gleam on the dagger in his hand. I didn't really have time to register what that meant before my world was swallowed in darkness.