Page 101 of Ensnared

To my shock, Axel leans toward Coral.

She stares at him for a moment, unsure of his intentions, but as he stays steady, she nods. Axel, secretly Azar the Prince of Flame, picks up my ten-year-old sister Coral and carries her inside the house and up the stairs. I drop Jade on the thick mattress next to her sister, and I tuck Sammy in, and then I back out of the room.

“What happened?” I practically round on Gideon the second the door closes.

“The hovercraft should have worked,” he says. “In the past, the water dragons didn’t notice them. The land dragons don’t worry about the water. The water dragons don’t pay attention to the air above the water.”

I close my eyes. It was a strange day. Any other day, he might have been right. When I reopen them, Gideon’s right in front of me. “You’re alright too?” His eyes search my body for signs of injury.

“The bombs didn’t detonate,” I whisper.

Has it really only been fourteen hours since Gideon and I parted paths? I’m bone-weary. Gideon must feel just as drained, but he also looks desperate. “You’re really alright?”

“Axel was right,” I say. “Azar handled it.” It’s strange, talking about Axel. . .Azar. I don’t know what to call him, even in my head. I know it’s one person, but I can’t let anyone else know. It’s a heavy secret, and that’s taking a toll on me, too. “I’m just so glad you’re alright.” If something had happened to Sammy or Coral or Jade, I’d have died.

His fingers brush the side of my face. “Liz.” The intensity of that one word shocks me. I’ve been sinking deep into equal parts relief and exhaustion, but his touch is like an electric wire.

“Gideon, I?—”

Do not kiss him. Axel doesn’t usually speak to me telepathically when he’s in human form, and he’s only a few feet away, waiting at the top of the stairs.

I look past Gideon’s intense face at Axel. His eyes are stormy and bright, like a fire burning in spite of a rainstorm.

I’m caught between a hammer and an anvil, doomed to shatter.

“Liz, all I could think about the whole way back was how happy I was not to leave you.” He swears. “I know that’s horrible. I tried to escape, I really did, but if it meant losing you.” He swears again. “I can’t do it again. Please don’t ask me to do it ever again. I’m not strong enough.”

“Actually.” Axel’s voice is steady. “Just today Azar offered to escort Sammy, Coral, and Jade to the barricade, safely freeing the four of you, if you swear to care for them.”

Gideon freezes. “Why would he do that?”

“As a favor to me, of course,” Axel says.

When my oldest friend turns around, he’s stiff. He’s angry. He’s like a gasoline-soaked woodpile, ready to explode in a shower of sparks. “Why would you ask him to do that?”

“For Liz,” Axel says. “Why else?”

Gideon grinds his teeth.

“Did you think you were the only one who could do anything for her?” Axel arches his eyebrow. “I feel like her loved ones would be safer with me, but for some reason, she trusts you.”

The muscles in Gideon’s arm, an arm that has knocked out countless numbers of America’s top fighters, are bunched and ready. “Stop talking.”

“Gideon,” I say. “He’s trying to help.”

“He’s one of them, Liz. He may look human, but he’s not. Don’t forget that.”

Gideon doesn’t know the half of it. “Will you do it?” I ask softly.

His nostrils flare. “What if I say no?”

“We’ll all live here,” Axel says. “Like one big, happy family.” He lifts one hand and beckons me with two fingers. “Come, Liz. We have some things to discuss.”

“Like what? What’s going on?” Gideon’s brows furrow as he glances from Axel to me and back again. “What would you have to talk about?”

Axel shrugs. “We’re bonded, or didn’t you hear that?”

There’s a vein in the side of Gideon’s jaw that always pops when he’s angry. It’s beating a staccato rhythm on the side of his face right now.