Page 71 of Ensnared

But why isn’t Mom defending me? She’s just sitting there on the dragon’s neck, not even moving.

“I think Axel may have things right,” I say. “I follow his rules, but I’m not a robot. You might want to learn from him.”

“Don’t be rude,” Mom says.

Those are her first words to me? Really?

Before I can respond, six more electro dragons circle and land on all sides of me. The courtyard in front of the conference center is massive, but with them closing in, it’s feeling much smaller.

How shall we kill her, Your Majesty? asks the largest one. He sounds male, but who knows? I’m not sure how I can even tell which one is speaking, but somehow, I just know.

If we strike her, Azar will be angry, says the smallest one. She’s standing a solid dragon’s distance away from the others. Nervous Nelly. That’s what I call her in my head.

“Yikes.” I cringe dramatically. “You’re right. Azar won’t want you doing this. He and Axel are close, and if I were you, that big red dragon would scare me. Badly.”

Mom’s dragon laughs.

“Look, Princess Petunia, if I know one thing, it’s this. You do not want to upset Prince Azar.”

I don’t plan to, she says, her head tilting toward the other electro dragons. Fly her high up, and then drop her. Her gaze is crafty. I won’t have anything to do with your death or know a thing about it.

I can’t believe I thought Mom or Penelope or any of the other ensnared might speak up for me. No one says a single word in my defense. Good thing I know how to defend myself. “As I’m dying, I’m going to think about all the ways Azar might torture you before he kills you. I had one of my humans tell Axel where I was coming and at whose orders before I left. Azar will find out, and you’ll pay the price, no matter how you try to disguise it.”

She smiles. No one trusts the word of humans.

“That’s where you’re wrong. Axel actually listens to me, and you may think it’s a weakness, but I think you’ll find it has its perks. You know, when you’re dying horribly.”

Either way, you’ll already be dead.

She may be right, since it’s currently seven dragons to one paltry human. But what she doesn’t know is that Axel armed his useless human. A sword would have been better, but at least I have three daggers dipped in Azar’s venom.

Fly her up and drop her. Now!

Nervous Nelly steps back, but two other electro dragons aren’t as nervous, and they both advance. I grab one dagger for each hand. “Let’s play, drag-queens.” I’m actually smiling at my stupid joke they won’t even get. I must have lost my mind.

But now that they’re actually trying to kill me, I sink into the calm place. The spot where I hang out during a fight. I might die, but that means I have nothing to lose by fighting my hardest. That makes my decisions terribly simple.

The biggest silver dragon is one of those advancing on me, and he opens his mouth and whips his head toward me preternaturally fast, but I’m not a normal human anymore, either. I leap sideways and slash with my right hand.

The blade catches him on the side of his triangular head, and unlike every other blade I’ve tried to use with them, it slides through his hide like a hot knife through butter, even sizzling.

His scream of pain is a beautiful thing.

Which is good, because while I was distracted with him, the other beast snapped its horrible maw around my left leg. The pain tries to incapacitate me, but I step away from it.

I trained for this—well, not exactly this, but to ignore pain.

With great determination, I block it out, and focus, bending at the waist, twisting like a rat in a trap, and plunge the other dagger in the psychopath’s eye. It roars, widening its jaw, which releases me. I stumble away, tripping over the massive body of the first dragon. It’s utterly motionless in the center of the courtyard, and I’m not the only one who’s shocked by that. The other gathered dragons are backing away.

Axel wasn’t lying. These daggers are, hands down, the best gift I’ve ever received.

“Alright, who’s next?” I’m smiling maniacally.

It might have been nice if Axel mentioned whether they’re multi-use, or like a one-dragon takedown type of thing. Either way, one’s stuck in a dragon’s eye, and the other’s been used. I have one sure-thing left. I hold it in my right hand, my dominant hand.

What magic is that? Princess Petunia’s not backing down, and she looks ticked.

“I told you Axel and Azar are tight, idiot. Did you think I was just going to stand here and let you splatter me on the pavement?” I look over my shoulder at the second dragon, also now lying unmoving on the ground.