Page 16 of Ensnared (The Dragon Captured #1)

“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.”

“You don’t sound very grateful.” She tilts her head and twists her lips. “If you don’t really want help, I’ll just head back.”

“No, I do,” I say. “I have no idea how to do anything.”

She purses her lips as if she agrees. “Where shall we work? It needs to be somewhere you won’t be distracted.”

Fluff Dog races through the open front door and starts barking. Helpful. Very helpful.

“Hey.” I scoop her up and jog up the path to the door, abandoning Sammy’s Batman lamp. I raise my voice to top volume. “Now, you stay in there, Fluff Dog. I’m going to be training, and I can’t be distracted .” Even if the others don’t get the message, Coral will. She’ll keep them inside, I’m sure.

“What was that?” Penelope looks disgusted.

“I found her a few days ago,” I say. “She’s a rescue.”

“Things like that won’t survive in this world. You should learn to let them go.”

Is that what she’s done? Has she let go of anything that she thinks won’t survive? I’m afraid to ask. “Let’s go around the back of the house.”

“Were you really ensnared by an earth blessed?” Now Penelope really looks unimpressed. “How unfortunate.”

“He’s their prince at least,” I say.

“Wow, the prince of the unfortunates,” she says. “Which makes you the bottom of the pile.”

I stretch a bit and bounce back and forth. “I can take care of myself.”

Her laugh is hard and sharp. “Maybe you could in your past life, but now you take your position from your blessed, and yours is the worst it could be, prince or not.”

“And I suppose your dragon craps rainbows?”

“Mine can take down a plane,” she says. “She can kill a hundred people with one lightning bolt. So yes, she’s far, far superior to yours who can. . .dig holes.”

“And yet, here you are, at the request of my mud dragon prince, teaching his little lackey how to mind-control humans.”

“Alright.” Penelope starts to walk away. “I think we’re done.”

I’m not sure how hard Axel had to work or how many favors he called in to get me a trainer, and now I’ve already scared her off.

That’s not going to go over well, and if what she’s saying is true, I may need to be strong enough to keep my siblings safe when Axel’s not around.

That means I need to figure out exactly what I can do.

And also, if she leaves, I’ll never be able to ask her about Mom.

But how can I stop her?

I can supposedly mind control humans just like she can. . .and she’s a human.

I focus on her retreating form, thinking as hard as I can about how she should not be leaving, and how her feet should not be moving away. Her body should about-face and return to stand by me.

Then I push that thought at her.

She freezes.

I can’t help my smile. I clearly did something.

“Was that you?” She turns around slowly, a wicked smile curving her lips.

I drop my hands to my hips. “No more digs about how my dragon’s crappy, alright?”

“That was, without a doubt, the most pathetic attempt to coerce that I’ve ever felt.”

My jaw drops. It was. . .pathetic? “I stopped you, though.”

“Only because I had an uncontrollable urge to laugh.”

“I didn’t get any training,” I say. “That’s why.”

“You think I did? The blessed have been here for less than two weeks, you idiot. No one trained me at all. I learned what I know from watching my master do it to me.”

“Mine hasn’t ever controlled me.”

Her jaw drops.

“I mean, he tells me what to do a lot, but otherwise.” I shrug.

A vein pops out on her forehead.

“Is that really so bad? I mean, it’s not like you should be proud of piloting other humans like they’re puppets.”

She stalks back toward me, her eyes flashing.

“You think I want to do that? You think it’s fun for me to remove people’s free will?

” Her voice practically snaps. “It was that or watch them die , you imbecile. I’m doing what I have to do, and the fact that you don’t have to—” She huffs.

“You’re embarrassing. Do better.” The time, she pivots quickly and jogs away.

“Wait.” My voice is small, and I’m not even sure she’ll hear it.

She stops again, but she doesn’t turn around.

I have to force the words out, and they aren’t very emphatic, but at least I manage to say them. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more grateful. I think I really do need your help.”

Her sigh is pronounced, but when she turns, she’s not smirking or scowling or even frowning. “You may be the least intuitive bright I’ve ever met, and there are hundreds of us.”

Speaking of hundreds. . . “Do you know all the other ensnared?”

She frowns. “I didn’t know any of them before, but now we’re shoved into doing the same things.”

“Right, but I heard that brights tend to run in families.”

She’s still frowning.

“Did anyone else from your family. . .”

She shakes her head. “My husband was killed by the dragon who bonded me, and I don’t have children.”

And now it feels like it’s in poor taste to ask about Mom. I’ll have to circle back around to it later. “I’m sorry about your husband.”

“I don’t dwell on my losses, or they overwhelm me.”

I can see a little more why she’d have wanted to stab her dragon, too.

“But for what it’s worth, most days, I think he got the right end of things. I can’t think of anything worse to wish on a loved one than having them be ensnared, too.”

I’m guessing my mom’s dragon is less like Axel and more like her master, and that thought depresses me most of all. Once I learn to master the basics of my new job, then I’ll start prying for more information about Mom. Until then, I’ll pray that she’s gotten lucky like me.