Page 117 of Ensnared

The red isn’t dyed.

The brown and gold sections aren’t either. The golden part of the skin exactly matches the gold visor and the golden shoulder shield that both lock into place without any external mechanism.

“Where did you get this?” I ask, as I leave the bathroom. “Is it really dragon skin?”

Of course, he says. It’s my skin. What else would you wear?

“But you need your skin, surely.”

I saved it when I shed. Now it’s yours.

“You saved it? Where?”

He sighs.

“Magic?”

He snorts, smoke wafting upward from his huge nostrils.

“Alright, alright. Let the slow kid in the class through. We have some dragons to greet.”

Climb on, he says.

It’s easier than it was, and I notice I’m developing calluses on my hands where I’ve been gripping his shoulder ridges. So much for magic. Some things I’m figuring out the human way—painful and slow, but much more familiar.

If you really want a saddle, he says, I can make you one.

“We can talk about this later, when I’m not about to meet a thousand of your closest friends.”

Try ten thousand.

I really did not have the best view the last time, but this time, when Azar walks out, there are dragons arrayed around his tower as far as my eyes can see. In case I wasn’t yet sufficiently in awe, Azar steps off the platform and plummets nearly to the ground before spreading his wings and coasting in a slow, lazy circle.

This is Elizabeth Chadwick, he says. She was Axel’s bonded. I took her from him, and now she’s mine. She isn’t merely ensnared. We’re entwined, so if you lay so much as a claw on her, I will reduce you to ash. And then, I’ll utterly decimate anyone who ever cared for you.

Okay.

Bow.

They all do—like an ocean of shining, shimmering scales, all the dragons beneath us drop down, their heads lowering to the ground and staying low.

“How long are you going to?—”

As long as I want.

I’ve never really seen absolute power in my life. After all, even the President of the United States has to be elected, and his term is limited.

But now, I guess I have. Azar commands ten thousand dragons. He swallows nukes and converts their power into a nightlight. He magics boundaries and dragon skin suits, and he fears nothing.

And now he’s protecting me.

I’m not going to lie. It’s a heady feeling. I give myself a moment to revel in it before I start to think about what that means. In thirty seconds, I went from a human who was fighting against the devil to save all humankind to a minion of the destroyer.

Oh, crap.

Good feelings definitely all gone.

Azar roars, then.