Page 26 of Ensnared (The Dragon Captured #1)

Is it possible that he’s doing it specifically to torment Gideon?

Gideon will hate having people in his room banging and whamming and cutting and sawing, enslaved humans who won’t even talk to him or acknowledge his presence.

He’d vastly prefer to keep the makeshift wall I made with sheets of plastic and duct tape, even if it means he’s a little chilly.

“That’s a lot of food,” Gideon says as he walks into the family room. “It smells good.”

“It is good,” Axel says.

“You don’t eat,” I say.

“I do eat,” Axel argues. “I just don’t usually eat around you.”

“Don’t let us distract you,” Gideon says. “You can go eat wherever you usually do. Liz and I have a lot to catch up on.” His smile’s dismissive and self-assured.

Axel’s smile’s almost as bad, so smug that I wonder how he can bear it. “Don’t let me stop you from ‘catching up.’” He sits at the head of the table, his plate loaded up with bacon, eggs, and fruit. “Please.” He tosses his head. “Eat as much of our food as you want.”

Our . It’s literally the first time Axel has ever referred to anything as ours. He’s clearly doing it for show, but it works.

Gideon grits his teeth.

The two of them are like a pile of gasoline-soaked firewood, just waiting for a spark.

“Alright,” I say. “Well, I’d better get across the street and start working with the humans.”

“Humans?” Gideon perks up. “I can help.”

“Sure.” Axel’s smile widens. “You should join them.” He looks positively devilish. “Actually, now that I think about it, he’d make an excellent soldier—he said it himself. You should put him on the front lines to defend us.”

Gideon’s about to do something even dumber than the humans leading the attack on Houston and pick a fight with a dragon in his lair. If I leave, maybe Gideon can follow me. We need to escape this pressure cooker before it blows.

I hop up and head for the door.

“You haven’t eaten anything, Liz. Sit.” Axel’s words are light, but he’s not asking. If I ignore him, I might find out how good he is at ordering me to do things.

I make a U-turn and head for the kitchen, tossing things onto my plate without thinking. I lope over to the table and drag out the chair right next to Axel. Maybe that will mollify him. Hopefully Gideon will follow my lead and sit far on the other side of the table.

Fluff Dog, utterly unaware of what’s going on, is sitting where she always does, right at my feet, her eyes following my every movement like her tiny life depends on it.

Gideon’s right on my heels with an equally laden plate, but instead of sitting on the opposite end of the table, he sits right next to me. Then he makes it all worse by dropping an arm around the back of my chair.

Axel opens his mouth, probably to argue more, but he’s interrupted.

Glory be.

Sammy’s clomping down the stairs, “Hey, Fluff. Where are you, Fluff?”

She turns toward him, but doesn’t move an inch.

“You need to take her out,” I say.

“I’ll do it,” Jade says. “She won’t go with him, not when there’s food to beg for.”

“We can just open the back door,” Coral says, her voice full of irritation. “You guys always make everything so much harder than it needs to be.”

“And who keeps cooking bacon?” Jade asks. “Every single time you eat that, a pig has to die.”

I stuff mine in my mouth as quickly as I can, just like Dad always did at home. Gideon’s doing the same thing. We both smile as innocently as possible.

“What’s wrong with pigs dying?” Axel asks, eyeing his huge pile of bacon. “That’s their purpose in life—to feed us.”

“Their purpose is to die ?” Jade pauses, three steps from the ground floor. “So you think that all animals are born just so we can eat them?”

I shake my head at him and mouth the words, don’t bother .

“Animals eat other animals,” Axel says. “Lions and dogs and other predators all consume the flesh of other animals. It’s the way of life.”

“It’s the way of death ,” Jade says.

“But if the predators didn’t eat them,” Axel says, “the deer and squirrels and rabbits would overrun the earth.”

“So?” Jade puts one hand on her hip.

“Then they’d slowly starve,” he says, “and so would the rest of you. Isn’t it better that they’re born, they grow up and live nice lives, and then die so that the population is balanced?”

“Murderers always have some justification for murder that makes them sound better.” She huffs. “I don’t buy it.”

“Your sister ate bacon, too,” Axel says. “Why isn’t she getting a lecture?”

“Elizabeth! Did you really?” Jade spins around to face me. “Mom would be horrified.”

“Mom’s been here for weeks and hasn’t even looked for us,” I say without thinking. I snap my mouth shut, but it’s too late. I can’t snatch the words back.

“She’s ensnared,” Jade says.

“So is Liz,” Sammy’s voice is tiny. “But she’s here.”

“She got ensnared by a nice dragon, though,” Coral says. “Maybe Mom didn’t.”

Nice.

Coral just called Axel nice.

Axel doesn’t even look upset by it. The Prince of the Earth Blessed who has been heading their defense operations, commanding his dragon troops to throw up earthen walls and slay any humans who attack, was just described as nice because he’s taken in four pet humans and a yappy dog.

I shovel eggs into my mouth until they’re gone, and then I stand up. “Well, I’ve eaten. Dead pig carcass and everything. May I be excused now?” If Gideon can’t manage to stay alive while I’m gone, well, that’s his own fault.

“I’ll come.” Gideon stands too. Somehow, he managed to clear his entire plate in the same amount of time it took me to eat my one large spoonful of eggs.

“Be back by dinner,” Axel says. “I need to hear a report on how the humans are doing. You’re currently managing one tenth the number of any other ensnared.”

I snag my visor off the mantel and drop it into place. “Fine.”

Gideon’s trotting to keep up with me, and I realize that I’m practically running across the street. Somehow, having him here reminds me how far I am right now from where I ought to be.

“You seem upset,” he says.

I spin around. “I’m training an attack force.”

“Okay.”

“Of humans, so that they can attack other humans on behalf of dragons .”

Gideon blinks. “Is this news?”

My eyes well with tears. “How is this my life?” I haven’t cried often, but in this moment, it feels like I’m drowning in sorrow for what my life has become.

“Oh, hey.” Gideon hugs me.

I’ve spent a lot of time comforting my siblings. I regularly have to pet and calm Fluff Dog. But since Mom looked at me and ordered me to keep the rugrats safe, no one has comforted me .

Until now.

Gideon’s arms are strong, and they’re steady, and they’re utterly useless against the massive beasts who might kill us all. But it’s just what I need in this moment anyway, to help me remember what team I’m on.

“I have a plan,” he whispers. “I need to get you out of here before the nuke hits.”

“What?”

He doesn’t release me. “I know you have to be careful what you say and think, because of your bond with that guy.” He clears his throat. “But I’m getting you and your siblings out of here.”

I pull away. “You would have been killed with your friends if it hadn’t been for my intervention.”

“That was a gamble,” he says. “But I knew you were bound to an earth dragon, thanks to your note.”

“You did get it,” I say.

He nods. “Before they expanded the perimeter, we snuck in several times. I prayed every day that I’d find you, but even though we evacuated thousands, you weren’t among them.”

I’m suddenly acutely aware that we’re just standing still in the middle of the street. “Let’s get the training started.”

He follows me to the field behind the neighborhood that used to be a park full of soccer fields. “This is where we’re supposed to train.”

“What about weapons?” he asks.

“We have plenty.” I point at the storage buildings. “The dragons don’t care what we use—none of them work on them. They’re only effective against other humans. We’re loaded up with guns, knives, and plenty of bullets.”

“They really trust you with all this?”

“I think you dramatically underestimate what I can do.” I tap the front of my visor to give him some context, and then I push the humans in my group a command to come out for training.

Like good little automatons, they all march out and form into perfectly straight lines in front of me.

“That’s creepy,” he says. “So you just magically lobotomize them?”

I shake my head, and I push the command to rest at ease, but not to leave the field. The men and women’s posture immediately changes. They’re chatting and talking and moving around freely.

“What just happened?”

“I released them,” I say. “It’s really that simple.

It might be scarier than the dragons. Something about my brain and that bond has made me some kind of horrible puppet master.

I can tell them what to do. What not to do.

How high to jump. Whatever I order, they just do it.

Or I can release them, and they revert to their non-controlled states. ”

“But surely they can refuse some of your commands.”

I shrug. “If some of them can, none of mine have been among them.”

“But when you’re not ordering them to do something, they just.” He gestures. “They’re normal?”

I nod.

“And they don’t try to attack you, or run around screaming?”

I tap my visor again. “I told them to always remain calm, and always be ready for my new commands. I told them not to fight. I give them rules, and they follow them.”

“That’s. . .” Gideon swallows. “Unsettling.”

“What’s more unsettling to me is how okay they are with it. Actually, quite a few of them have come and asked me to help them manage their mental health. In the same way that I order them around, I can simply eliminate their anxiety, eradicate their depression, or manage their bipolar symptoms.”

“I wonder whether the numbers we guesstimated are correct,” he says. “Maybe there are more people still alive in here than they think. It’s not like they can send drones.”