Page 12 of Ensnared
“Wait, is she safe?” I ask. Then a horrible thought occurs to me. “She’s still here, right? You didn’t—?”
He scowls at me. “Didn’twhat, exactly?”
I don’t want to finish that thought. But if a witch was seen as a threat to the clan, most sea dragons would vote for a swift and quiet execution. My stomach roils at the thought, and I’m no longer hungry. If anything happened to her…
“She’s okay, right?”
Ty lets out a disgusted snort. “Yeah. She’s okay. She’s stillhere, too.”
I turn to him. “What’s your problem?”
“Sheliedto us. So did he.” Ty nods at Aiden.
“Fuck.” This is a mess.
“She’s our employee now,” Aiden says. “There’s a lot of work to be done if we want to make sure the clan is safe from humans and witches alike. I don’t want some careless tourist to fly his drone into the village or whatever and I need to know that everyone is protected from the witches. It’s only a matter of time beforesomeonesniffs out that we still exist.”
“And you thought the best way to do that was bring a witch into our clan?” Ty scoffs.
It’s a fair question.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask.
“I wanted to keep her safe. I thought the two of you would react like most dragons would. I guess I was right.” Aiden glowers at Ty.
My best friend grunts and storms out of the room. I can’t go after him, not until I know what Aiden plans to do with Skye.
I glance at his profile. “What’s going to happen now?”
“Skye has signed the contract,” he says, his face tight with tension.
I wonder what happened during that conversation to put that grimace on his face.
“How did she take the news that we were dragons?” I ask.
It’s what’s been eating at me for weeks now. Lying to her has been terrible, and I can’t say I’m sorry that our secrets are out in the open now. Am I happy that she’s a witch? Not particularly. But maybe it’s better that she’s not human—at least she understands what it means to hide in plain sight, to live among humans and be forced to pretend. Now, there will be no pretense left.
I notice then that Aiden has fallen silent. “Aiden?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Oh shit,” I groan. “You haven’t told her?”
He shakes his head.
“But why? If anyone understands the need for secrecy, it’s witches. They’ve been living in hiding for centuries. They know exactly what will happen if humans find out about us.”
“Don’t be a fool. You know perfectly well why witches can’t find out about us. I can’t risk her mentioning us to her sister or grandmother.”
“But she’s estranged from her entire family!”
I blurt the words, then think about it. Did she make that part up?
I hate that I’m now questioning everything she ever told me because of this single bit of new information about her.
“Family ties might win if her coven members decide they forgive her,” Aiden insists. “We can’t tell her. The entire clan is at stake. The entire dragonkind.”
Fuck me, he’s right. There’s more than just our clan to think about. The Norwegians were nearly decimated during World War II, and the witches then led attacks against German and Welsh dragons as well. The Chinese clans had been in hiding for even longer, so no one knows exactly how many sea dragons still exist in the world.
