Page 36 of Ensnared (The Dragon Captured #1)

“ D idn’t Axel tell you?” I glare. “My mother’s bonded to her.” I toss my head. “Step away from the burned, broken, and bleeding electro dragon.”

Azar’s talons tighten.

Ocharta’s whining is now an incoherent, high-pitched plea.

Please, I beg. I’ll get down on my knees if I have to. Please, Azar.

Azar disembowels her with one swipe.

Watch her, he growls, addressing Gordon, I think.

Then he drops the electro dragon like she’s a hot potato. Judging by his command, she’s not going to die from losing half her insides onto the pavement below. Or at least, he doesn’t seem to think so. But the great stuff is short lived.

He snatches me next, rocketing off the ground in an insane burst, his wings beating the air around us into a tornado-like frenzy as we shoot up, up, up into the sky. We’re getting high enough that the ground below’s obscured and I’m struggling to breathe when I finally cry uncle.

Stop, I beg. Please, stop. I can’t survive up here.

Azar’s wings straighten like the sail of a ship, snapping open, and we coast, slowly descending back toward the ground.

“Are you mad I know you’re Axel?” I ask, once there’s enough oxygen I can breathe again.

I’m not Axel, he says.

“Nice try.” I tap my head. “But the bond don’t lie, big man.”

You’ve been around me before, he says. You never thought anything was amiss.

“I wasn’t really monitoring Axel’s location in those instances,” I say. “But this time, I was calling for you.”

He’s not looking at me, and I’m beginning to think it’s intentional.

“Why are you carrying me this time, instead of letting me ride?”

You weren’t being rational. I didn’t think you were safe to ride.

I pat his leg. “I’m fine, now. I can ride.”

He drops me.

My stomach does fifteen or so flips as I freefall through the air before he glides beneath me, his hard, shiny, red scales sliding past me smoothly until my fingers reach the juncture of his shoulder. There’s a pronounced ridge there I grab, just like the last time. “That’s better,” I whisper.

You’re mistaken, he says, still doggedly trying.

“You want me to pretend that I don’t know you and Axel are the same person?

” I ask. “I mean, I can do that, but I don’t see the point.

Wouldn’t you prefer me to be honest with you?

” I think over the other times he showed up to save me, and how I inexplicably felt comfortable with the most terrifying of all the beasts who invaded earth.

Axel is earth blessed.

“And you’re the Prince of Flame, yes, I know. I’ve heard.” I lean down closer, wrapping my arms around the top of his muscular shoulders. “I was there, you know, when you defended Axel to all the gathered dragons. You know who coincidentally wasn’t there?”

He remains silent, only the movement of his wings showing that he’s not entirely frozen.

“I’m so glad you asked. It was Axel. Your best friend, your alter ego, the Prince of the Earth Blessed. Yep, the very dragon you were there to defend? He wasn’t there. I wonder why that was.”

Still, silence.

“You know, the earth dragon who wasn’t supposed to be able to bond a human, but somehow did? Yep, that one. The one who’s always gone—night, day, whenever. That one.”

I can’t believe he’s not admitting it yet.

“What I can’t figure out is why he thought that he could fool the human he bonded, forever .

I mean, sure, at first, the whole bond is new and exciting.

You could make sure that while I train some, I don’t really learn everything.

You could stay away a lot, so that I don’t get to strengthen our connection.

” I realize something. “That’s why you wanted to get rid of our bond so badly.

Bonding me as Axel was really bad news, because Axel shouldn’t be able to bond anything.

What I can’t figure out, because I’m not a dragon, is. . .why is it a secret?”

That sets him off. Azar plunges toward the ground, and I’m genuinely worried he’s about to bank and whip me right off, finishing off Ocharta’s original plan of creating a Liz jelly spot on the ground.

But when he finally does flip out his wings and slow, I’m still safely on his back.

And then he lands, his tree-trunk legs thunderously walking, and I realize that intentional or not, we’re standing in the very park where he bonded me.

The last time we were here, I stabbed him in the throat.

“You could just leave me here,” I say. “Or better yet, you could release me just over the barricade. I promise not to, like, die stupidly. You won’t need to worry about your secret anymore, because I won’t be able to tell any other dragons about it.”

Elizabeth. Azar’s staring at me intently. No one can know.

“No one, like only Gordon and Rufus?” I ask.

I can’t help noticing that Azar’s sort of dripping lava-like fluid from his mouth, as if he’s angry enough that it’s just spilling over. It’s searing its way through the pavement and into the ground below.

“Maybe you should shift for a little bit,” I say. “Just an idea. I mean, you can do what you want, obviously, but like, we could talk better if you weren’t likely to accidentally broil me for saying the wrong thing.”

Azar stares at me for a moment, and then I hear the same engine-revving sound I’m used to hearing, and there’s a dark cloud of reddish smoke, and then his human form emerges, wearing a black suit, a charcoal shirt, and a deep, blood-red tie.

“This look really works for you.”

Axel blinks and glances down at his suit. He snorts. “Stupid magic just takes over whenever I’m not thinking.”

I slow clap. “Bravo, magic. Nicely played.”

“I mean it, Liz. No one can know.”

“Why’s it such a big secret?” I walk toward him slowly, wondering how much of him is really the same as the person I’ve been around the past few weeks.

Is he the guy who has saved me, who has kept my siblings safe, and who has put up with Gideon?

Or is the real Azar the massive red beast who melts dragons’ tails off and.

. .oh, heavens. Eats nuclear bombs. “Are you really fine?” I step toward him again, my hands lifting to touch his arm and run down it lightly. “You ate a nuclear warhead.”

“Three,” he says. “I actually really liked them. It was like getting some kind of. . .I don’t know. A jolt of energy unlike any I’ve had. It was delightful.”

He really doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. “But you aren’t answering. Why can’t anyone know about the Axel-Azar axis of evil?”

Axel turns away from me, leaning against the side of the playset. It’s a really funny image. The dragon-man who just foiled all the humans’ efforts to destroy him is leaning against a fire-engine red and royal blue kids’ slide.

“I’m not exactly on your side,” I admit.

“But I’m not really your enemy, either.” I realize as I say it that I mean it.

Mostly. Sure, if I could destroy him, I might do it.

But since I can’t, at least, not without dying before I can complete any attempt, I’d rather try to convince him to do the minimum damage while he’s here looking for this heart thing.

“You keep forcing me to spare the creature who wants to kill you,” he says.

“She’s bonded to my mother,” I say. “Would you want your mother to die?”

“I never knew my mother.” He shrugs. “Sure, you can kill her if she’s attacking me.”

He never knew his mother? That’s depressing. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s normal for dragons. “Hey.” Something occurs to me, as I review our recent interactions. “You told me you’d talk to Azar, but you didn’t know what he’d say.” I whack him on the shoulder. “You liar.”

Axel frowns. “I couldn’t very well tell you that he already knew and would take it under advisement.”

“You almost killed her.”

“Your mother isn’t my top priority,” he says.

“What is, then? This heart thing?”

He steps inside of my guard, his face hovering over mine. “I find that you distract my focus. When you’re around, I can’t always prioritize our real goal.”

Mr. Dragon Baddie almost just said that I’m his priority. I mean, he didn’t. He said I’m a distraction, but his answer was dangerously close to that. “I’m sorry for causing you distress,” I say, “but my entire world is at stake right now, so I may not be making measured decisions, either.”

He’s still standing right next to me, almost unnaturally still. His eyes slowly slide down my face, finally stopping on my mouth. “You stole my swords.”

That is not what I thought he’d say.

My entire body’s trembling—he may be a terrible, awful dragon prince, but he feels like a terrible, awful man in this moment.

A man I’ve seen shirtless. A man whose rippling abs have made my mouth go dry.

A man whose breath has the capacity to fog my brain.

A man whose undivided attention makes me forget my priorities.

My brain really needs to focus around him. He’s accusing me of stealing his property right now.

“I think, if you want to be technical,” I say, “they’re really more my swords.”

“How so?” His eyes shift back up to mine, and I breathe an embarrassingly audible sigh of relief.

“ You can’t remove them from the stone.” I duck underneath his arm and hop up on the slide. Then I scamper up it and stand at the top. “But I can.”

“I gave you daggers,” he says.

“After I used them, you never replaced them.”

“I was busy punishing the person you had to use them to fight.” He steps up on the bottom of the slide, and then he begins to stalk his way toward me.

I squeak and run.

And now he’s chasing me, the most alpha predator I’ve ever seen—and the deadliest. I hop off the far end, grabbing the monkey bars and moving across them, arm over arm.

I hear him behind me, still moving forward.

I wonder whether he’s even capable of breaking off a chase once it’s begun. Most predators aren’t.

What have I gotten myself into?