Page 21 of Ensnared (The Dragon Captured #1)

“ M e?” I must’ve heard him wrong. “How could I be stopping you?”

“You’re at the center of everything I do now. If I shut down, what might you do? Or what might happen to you?”

“I’m not a child,” I say.

“All evidence to the contrary.”

That stings a bit.

“The last time I left you alone, you were nearly killed, and you murdered two of my people.”

I wince, because all of that’s true. “But you abandoned me,” I say. “You said you’d protect us, and then you disappeared. Surely you can trust me for a few hours. You leave all the time.”

He taps the side of my forehead. “I’m always monitoring you, though.”

“So, you knew that day?”

“Of course,” he says. “That’s why I—” He coughs. “That’s why I sent Azar to help you.”

I can’t help shuddering when he mentions the terrifying beast who flayed that green dragon open like he was a butterfly shrimp. “Right.”

“But now that we’ve fully bonded, it’s even easier.”

“And if you take an hour or two off, you think I’ll, what? Arm my people and come try to murder you?”

He shakes his head. “You’d be killed in an instant.”

Because whatever happens to him. . . Ugh. I’d almost forgotten that little gem. “So, then go decompress or whatever.”

He stares at me for a moment. “I’ll have Gordon and Rufus keep an eye out.”

“Sure, yes. They can make sure I don’t do anything stupid while you’re taking your nap.” I try not to be annoyed—I walked outside one time. It wasn’t that bad.

“It’s not just that I worry about your judgment,” he says. “I have enemies.”

“Among the other dragons, you mean?”

He grunts.

“But you’re best friends with the commander, right?”

“That’s the reason a lot of them hate me.” He flops back on the ground and closes his eyes. “None of them understand why Azar likes me. They’re constantly looking for ways to get rid of me or convince him to like them better.”

“How does Azar feel about that?”

He opens his eyes, and the look he gives me. . .I can’t interpret it, even with the benefit of the bond. “He doesn’t like it any more than I do, but what can he do? If he tells them to leave me alone, they hate me more. If he acts like he dislikes me, they’ll attack me openly.”

“But you’re a prince.”

“Which means all the earth blessed answer to me. The expendable ones. The ones without wings, whom all the others of my kind despise.”

“The water dragons don’t have wings,” I say.

“They can essentially fly when they’re in the water, and they can walk just like we can on land. Looked at from a strictly objective perspective, we are the least valuable and the most populous.”

“Which is probably why they hate you.”

“How so?”

I push the workers a message to go to their assigned rooms in the houses across the street and take a break. “You command the largest force on earth, do you not?”

“Azar does.”

“Okay, but among the subordinates, no one leads a force as big as yours.”

“Undeniably.”

“And the head commander likes you best.”

He grunts again.

“They’re jealous.”

“The blessed don’t have emotions in the way you humans do.”

I’m not sure I really believe that, at least, not as a blanket statement. They may not have always had the same range of emotions, and they may not understand them. But I’ve seen him laugh, smirk, scowl, and regret, at the very least.

“We desire things. We know anger and hatred. We also yearn to possess. But I’ve read about the range of emotions humans feel, and. . .” He snorts.

“Sorrow?” I turn to face him, my face pressed against the grass.

“Nope. Nor hope, joy, or fear, at least, not in the sense that you feel it. That may be why I find you so refreshing. Most humans quiver and cry and beg. You didn’t do any of that. You reacted much more like an earth blessed would.”

“By stabbing you?”

“Exactly.” He props himself up on one elbow. “My rivals watch me. They know when it’s been a while, like now, and that makes them even more attentive. When I decompress, you’ll be at the highest risk of dealing with a strike blessed or water blessed attack.”

“Surely Azar would punish them.”

“It wouldn’t be official.”

“A small force at least,” I say. “Got it.”

“Liz.” His tone carries a warning. “Literally any blessed could kill you, so it’s not like I expect you to defend me.”

“Gee,” I say. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

“It’s the truth.” His eyes are as serious as I’ve seen them.

I rise to my knees and twist sideways to grab his discarded shirt, leaning over him, but careful not to touch him in any way. I’m planning to throw it in his face and tell him to go already.

Before I can fully straighten, he says, “What’re you doing?

” Because of the way he turns toward me, his shoulder bumps my side, and I collapse on top of him.

Our faces are suddenly less than two inches apart, and my body’s pressed against his from my toes almost to my nose.

All those abdominal muscles, I can feel them .

The muscles of his arms bunch as they wrap around me.

“Elizabeth.” His breath on my face reminds me of the moment he activated my visor. That makes me think about how deeply we’re connected. No matter what I do, I can feel him. He can feel me, too.

I swallow slowly, my eyes dropping to meet his. My heart’s hammering, and my entire body feels like one long run of raw nerves. What’s wrong with me? Why am I acting like this?

Is this Stockholm Syndrome?

“Are you injured?” Axel’s voice breaks the spell that fell over me. “Why are you still lying here?”

I scramble off him quickly, working doggedly to blank my mind.

The last thing I need is to send him some kind of stupid, inadvertent message.

His cluelessness about human minds has been my salvation.

I really mustn’t be so horribly obvious that he figures it out in spite of that.

“I’m fine. Go do your little thing. Right now.

Don’t wait.” I turn away so he doesn’t see the color rise in my cheeks.

“I don’t understand?—”

“Just go,” I say.

Luckily, after a moment of indecision, he listens, retreating to the house.

I almost follow him inside. I mean, on top of promising to stay out of trouble while he did his little nap, I also just dismissed my fifty worker-humans less than an hour after they arrived.

I feel like standing around outside like a dope after essentially shirking my first official ensnared task is probably not copacetic, but I’m not walking inside until I’m positive that he’s not going to see me.

So instead, I pace in front of the house, until Fluff Dog sees me and starts freaking out.

It takes about two minutes. When I do finally go inside, Sammy’s holding a jump rope around Jade’s waist, clicking, and saying “Heyah, heyah!”

“Do I want to know?” I ask Coral.

“She’s his horse.” She shrugs. “It keeps him busy since we’re still stuck staying inside.”

I may never really understand the six-year-old brain, but Coral’s right. He’s staying inside like I asked. Jade’s foot kicks the edge of the coffee table as they pass, and it hits a stupid decorative bowl, which topples over, spraying weird glass bead things all over the floor.

I groan, but the kids didn’t even notice, so I shuffle over to pick them up myself.

“Why don’t you guys head upstairs,” I say. “Axel’s doing something in his room, and he shouldn’t be disturbed.”

“Then someone should tell that to the silver dragon,” Sammy says.

“What?” My heart leaps into my throat.

“The one that’s by his window.” He points.

I swear.

Sammy repeats my exclamation.

“No,” I say. “Not that word. Never that word.”

Then I say it again. Because, if I try to save him, I’ll die. If I let them kill him? I’ll die. If any situation warrants the use of that word, it’s this one.

Sammy’s gaping at me.

“Oh, just go upstairs, rugrat.”

If I’m dying either way, I may as well be front and center when it happens. Besides. If my death delays them enough to buy him the time he needs to survive, he might honor his promise to care for my siblings, right? Maybe?

I hop the coffee table, and then the sofa, and I hang a right around the office and shove the master bedroom door open. Axel’s nowhere to be found—certainly not on the bed like I assumed he’d be for his nap thing.

I have no idea what processing means, but maybe it’s more of a bathroom type of situation. Ew. Wherever he is, I doubt he’s ready to be attacked by a silver dragon. Not that I’ll ever be ready for it.

But ready or not, it’s coming. It’s peering through the window on the door that opens onto the porch, clearly trying to figure out where to enter.

The silver dragons are the smallest ones, other than a few of the earth dragons that look pretty young, and I think it’ll be able to shove its way through the back door with minimal damage to the wall, sadly.

The solid brick might have slowed it down otherwise.

I glance at my watch. We’re, what? Fifteen minutes into this nap thing? Why didn’t I press him for a time estimate?

It’s okay, Liz. You don’t have to kill it .

I just have to keep it from killing him long enough for him to wake up. Didn’t he say Gordon and Rufus would be around? If I start shrieking, would they hear me? Or would that just alert more villains to the fact that Axel’s out of commission?

I start digging around for a weapon. Any kind of weapon will do. Axel’s room looks like he’s never used it. The bed’s pristine. The desk has zero papers on it, and why would it? The blessed have no hands, and they communicate with mental messages. They suck.

The nightstand’s bare. Why’d he even claim this room? And where is he, anyway?

Both the closet and the bathroom doors are closed.

But the stupid silver dragon’s done waiting, and it’s noticed me. It shakes the door. Bumps against the door. And then it whams repeatedly into the door.