Page 46 of Ensnared

I struck a deal, and I have to uphold my end, however distasteful. If I don’t, then Sammy, Jade, and Coral will die. I can’t risk that, no matter how unsavory I find my new job. Even when I have to start asking more and more of my humans—they work for me primarily, but Penelope brings me an increasing number of tasks they’re supposed to handle locally.

Without a government in place, without utilities and management teams, no one is at the helm on food production, water sanitation, keeping the grid running. The dragons stepped in, but they’re using humans to keep those things going.

I think it would be easier for them to simply dump us all outside the barricade, drag in a lot of cows or whatever they like to eat most, and live a human-free existence.

If they didn’t need to figure out what this heart thing was and recover it, they might have done just that, because most of what the humans are doing is keeping the area livable for the humans.

“I’m the leader of the earth blessed,” Axel explains on the morning he brings my first fifty workers. “I’m in charge of many things, but due to her past experience, we’re putting Liz in charge of building a defensive human force.”

“I thought the strike blessed handled most of the defense,” I say.

He shrugs. “There are a few hundred of them. There are thousands of us, and they consider us expendable.”

“But why do you need humans at all?”

His smile is predatory. “We’ve found that the humans outside our perimeter hesitate to fire on other humans.”

Great. I’m training shields for his dragons—human meat shields. This gets better and better.

“Why do you do it?” I ask.

“Do what?”

“Your own people don’t value you, so why do you keep working so hard for them?” If I could flip thousands of earth dragons to our side. . .

He meets my eyes. “It’s fine. Don’t feel sorry for us. It’s the way the world works.”

“We can change the world when it’s wrong,” I say. “In fact, it’s our duty to change it.”

His eyes dance. “Your naiveté is showing.”

“Maybe it is,” I say. “Or maybe I’m right, and you’re too afraid to admit it.”

“Your job is to prepare these humans to defend against an attack on the ground.”

“You want me to teach them to fight against other humans who might come and try to free them?”

Axel nods. “Exactly.”

“Is this a test?”

“You’re a fighter, Elizabeth. You’re being asked to prepare them to fight. Is that really so hard?”

I shrug. “It’s what I do,” I say. “I fight things, like stupid orders and stupid dragons.”

He rolls his eyes, but he looks tired. Actually, now that I’ve noticed it, he looks really tired, and when I search out the thread in my head, it feels. . .thin. Like it’s strained.

“Hey, are you okay?”

His brows draw together. “What do you mean?”

“I know you said dragons don’t sleep.”

“The blessed don’t sleep, that’s correct.”

“But you must need something, because it looks like you’re not getting it.”

He frowns. “You should be prepping your new soldiers.”