Page 36 of Ensnared

“What?”

“I’ve let it slide until now, but we’re not dragons. We’re the blessed. It’s our chosen name, and I hope you’ll use it. Not everyone is as understanding as I am.”

Now, nothing on earth could make me use their stupid name. Blessed, my foot. “The point is that, if you can do it, maybe the others can as well.”

“They’ve tried,” he says. “While I kept you waiting, dozens of them tried without success.”

I don’t want to know what their failure meant for the brights they found. I really hope those humans weren’t all killed. “So you’re a freak, and I’m your odd ensnared, and now I have to go out there and learn to let my freak flag fly.”

“I am keeping your siblings safe, as promised.”

“But not my mother.”

“I can’t do anything for her,” he says. “As mentioned, I can’t dissolve the bond once it exists. You didn’t tell me she was ensnared, or I’d have explained that at the time.”

“Noted.”

“I chose a house that’s close, but not in the center of everything,” Axel says. “It’s on the water, because I’m often asked to meet with strike and water blessed to coordinate our movements. I’m planning to be here as often as possible, to make sure your integration with the other ensnared is safe.”

Safe. So he’s expecting trouble.

This is just like how, at the doctor’s office, they tell you to expect pressure, but really they mean it will hurt. They say pressure, so that if you shout, you feel like a ninny for shouting about pressure.

Axel really is the worst.

“Your assigned mentor should be here in the next hour or so.”

“How fabulous.”

“By the end of the day, you’ll have some humans to monitor.”

“I probably won’t be ready for that for weeks and weeks.”

“Get ready faster.” Axel says. “How about this? Why don’t you save up all your complaints, and then you can yell at me when I get back?” He starts to walk away. “I’d also recommend that you keep your siblings away from the trainer. Not many blessed are as understanding as I am. If the ensnared human was to share information about your family’s existence, their master might see my indulgence of your requests as more than a little strange.”

Like he knows anything about humans at all.

No ensnared human would betray my siblings to their overlord.

“Or, suit yourself. You always do.” He winks, and then, with no further warning, the car engine noise revs up, his scales explode outward, and his entire body dramatically expands until a gleaming golden dragon is standing in front of me.

“Did you just wink at me?”

He doesn’t even grace me with a response, but I can feel what reminds me quite a bit of humor running through the thread between us. And then he disappears, running much faster than I realized he could.

I’ve barely been inside the house for five minutes, helping the kids pick a room—I have no idea whether Gordon and Rufus are staying here, but there are four bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. If they each have their own room, that leaves us two. There’s no chance I’ll be sharing with anyone, and my room has to be right by the kids. That puts us in the Jack-n-Jill suite on the far end, overlooking the water.

Gordon and Rufus, if they’re staying here too, can have the rooms overlooking the front of the house, and His Royal Blessed Pain-in-the-Rear can have the master suite downstairs.

I’m outside, preparing to bring another load of Sammy’s crap into the house when a tall woman wearing knee-high leather boots and tactical gear appears, trotting down the sidewalk. She has a strange silver bar, decorative almost, that’s somehow floating in front of her forehead. I’m guessing it’s the visor those dragons asked about. Her hair’s a light, bright color of silver that Mom’s turned to. I’m guessing that means she’s serving an electro dragon.

“Elizabeth?” She arches one eyebrow until it disappears behind the visor.

I nod.

“I’m Penelope. I’ll be training you today.”

“Oh, great.”