Page 72 of Ensnared

Did I kill them? Or are they just unconscious? I definitely don’t know enough about dragon anatomy to be able to tell.

Disarm her!

At first, I’m not sure who she’s commanding, because no one moves.

But then my mom slides off the princess’s back and walks toward me, her brow furrowed. She isn’t a warrior. She knows nothing about fighting. I could incapacitate her easily.

And I should.

But my hand trembles as she approaches.

“Mom?”

No reply.

She’s not even meeting my eyes.

“Mom.” It’s not a question now, but a plea. Why are my eyes welling with tears? “Mom!”

She finally looks at me, and I realize that she’s in there, but she’s not in control. She lifts her sword arm. A sword. My mother’s holding a sword.

And all I have is a poisoned dagger.

When she swings it at me, I barely duck in time, my wounded leg a misery with every movement. I make the mistake of looking down at it, and blood’s steadily flowing from my thigh downward, pooling in my shoe. My entire calf’s bright red. Even if I can ignore it, losing that much blood’s going to slow me down soon enough.

While she’s distracted, take her. Fly her up and drop her. Now. Go! Great. Princess Petunia’s ordering more dragons toward me.

Mom’s not slowing down either, and her movements definitely aren’t hers. Mom’s graceful, but she’s gentle and kind. She cares for everything, from the smallest bird to the largest beast. The woman hacking at me isn’t my mother. It’s a puppet piloted by Princess Petunia.

But if I kill the puppet, Mom dies.

It’s an impossible puzzle that I can’t solve, not even with a magical, venom-infused dagger. It feels like, with every dodge and stumble, I’m stumbling closer and closer to a total loss.

Mom’s sword clips my right shoulder. Now I’m limping on the left and slow at using my right arm. I flip my dagger around and spin into Mom’s guard, slamming the hilt into her nose.

She stumbles back, spraying blood on my chest.

I hop back out, limping as quickly as I can on my bad leg before she can hit me back. But that move cost me.

Nervous Nelly was not who I expected would dart in and grab my left arm, but she does. I almost hate stabbing her, but not enough to let her gnaw on my arm. I drag my slow right arm across my body and stab her on the nose.

She’s resigned as she releases me—I can see it. She snorts before her eyes close and her body goes slack.

Mom’s sword swings toward me again, a hairsbreadth behind Nelly’s collapsing body, and I leap backward. Only, my left leg can’t support my landing, leaving me to tumble over Nelly’s unconscious body in the process of evading it.

And. . .Princess Petunia had six helpers, and I’ve only dispatched three, which means there are three more dragons and the princess herself.

When another confounded silver dragon grabs my already wounded left leg, I bite off a swear word, wrenching my arm into motion. I fight back a wave of terrible, cutting, burning pain, but this time, when I scratch the dagger across the stupid dragon’s mouth, it merely clamps down harder.

I drop the dagger with an agonized shout as the dragon bunches up and then vaults into the air. I’ve never been in a helicopter, and I’ve never been bungee jumping or skydiving, and if I survive this, which seems unlikely, I don’t plan to ever do any of those things.

The trip into the stratosphere while dangling from a dragon’s mouth has ruined air travel for me permanently. At least it won’t be my own mother that kills me.

When the wretched son of a worm drops me, my heart quits working a little early. The ground may be very, very far below me, but no one gave me a handy pocket-parachute, so clearly this is the end of the line.

Surprisingly, as I plummet toward the earth, my thoughts turn to Axel. He’s so despised by his own people that they’d hunt down his bonded human and murder her, and yet, he’s just earnestly doing his job most days. He was kinder to me than any of the other dragons seem to have been. I might not have been very fair to him.

And my death is about to be very bad news.