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Kaida looked at him with a frown. "There is a way to help him right now. We can march there and convince him to complete the mate bond with me. That is the only way we can save him."
Suddenly, Beckett, Esen, and Arlo looked at one another; a language passed between them that she could not decipher. How they could talk to each other without saying a word showed Kaida just how close the bonds had brought them together. Even Enzo, despite being the prince from the mainland they all hated at first, was now considered another brother who happened to find them later in life. Though, he didn’t seem to be quite keeping up with the others just yet, his facial expressions of confusion were priceless. Her heart swelled at the idea that all four of her current mates cared for one another. If only Blaze could see how beneficial it was to all of them to have his completed bond, too.
"There are things you do not know about Blaze. As much as you want to change his mind about the mate bond, I do not think you can break the walls he built around the idea," Beckett told her sadly.
"Then tell me," Kaida demanded. "I need to know everything to understand."
Beckett sat on the furthest end of the couch. He took one of her feet into his hands, removed her shoe, and then started to work his fingers into circles to massage the bottom. Knowing that he was doing this to keep her calm, it gave her enough insight to know that whatever was causing Blaze to reject, or even acknowledge that he had a bond with her, was serious..
"Blaze's parents are no longer here. They died after an ambush. Blaze blames the mate bond for their deaths.”
Well, that was not what I was expecting.
“All of our parents were chosen to protect and govern this island. Due to their responsibility, they made their way around the island like we do now. During one of their patrols, a group of dragons decided they were not fit to rule. During this patrol, they saw only two of the eight people who governed the island. They used that advantage to ambush his parents. It was not a fair fight. There were at least ten people compared to the two. Blaze's parents did their best and knocked out several of the dragons, but they were not powerful enough, even together, to survive the attack. From what I understand, Blaze's mother was ganged up on. These dragons understood that she was the weaker of the two and did their best to put more people on her than Blaze’s father. His father rushed to his mate's side and was too concerned about her wounds to fight all the others at once. Blaze saw this as his father choosing his mother over his safety. If his father had not done that, he would still be here. Blaze thinks that his father chose to stay and protect his mate instead of running back to get help, which is the reason both of them were killed. If his father chose his mate over himself and his people, that means, in his mind, he would do the same if he took a mate. To Blaze, that is a weakness he feels he cannot afford. He has told us countless times over the years that he will never take a mate. The mate bond is nothing more than a distraction, especially in a fight. Even with us thinking about returning to the mainland or taking on the army with you by our side, he believes we will make the same mistakes his parents did. If one of them had understood that leaving behind their mate to bring more people to the fight would have led to both of them surviving."
Kaida stared at him. It was the missing piece to her understanding of Blaze, which had been missing since the day the bonds showed up. "So, he is choosing not to complete the mate bond...because he sees it as a weakness after his father chose to protect his mate. In the heat of battle, his father chose to stick by his mate to protect her from being attacked by many other dragons and was overwhelmed. Blaze thinks that is weakness?"
'Yes. Blaze believes that the mate bond removes the opportunity for you to put yourself first. He believes there are always times when you should be able to put yourself above everyone else, and having a mate removes that from your mind."
"That is ridiculous."
"Is it? All of us would throw ourselves in front of any weapon, magic, or anyone coming at us. We think your safety is more important than our safety."
"But that is the epitome of a mate bond: being able to count on someone else to keep you safe when you cannot keep yourself safe. It is about having someone at your back to protect you, whether that is protection from physical or emotional damage. It is about having someone to care about you just as much as you care about them."
"We understand that," said Enzo. "I can see where Blaze is coming from, though. I just understand that having a mate is something to cherish. Not everyone is given a fated mate. Some can only find someone they believe is compatible with them."
Blaze will just never understand how important a mate can be, how much power it can bring him, and how much love he can receive.
Kaida knew they were right. However, just because they were right does not mean she must be happy about it. She would break through those walls and show Blaze what a mate bond could do for him. Kaida would do anything to show Blaze that he is loved and that they would all do the same for him as he would for them, that it was mutual. Just because his father protected his mother did not mean that his mother would not have turned around and done the same for his father. Besides, it was not just her and him inside a mate bond. They had a unique situation. All six of them could protect one another and have more protection than his parents ever did.
"Well, if I cannot change his mind today, I will try another day. I understand it has nothing to do with me but something that happened to him in his childhood. That will not stop me from trying to complete the bond with someone who is meant for me. I should not be judged based on what happened to someone else. I am not them."
They all grinned at her. She could feel their pride for having her as it flowed through their bonds. She could also feel how they enjoyed simply conveying what they wanted to convey to her. There was no second-guessing about correctly communicating what they wanted to say or even if she understood what they were trying to say. They could express themselves and have no worries that she did not understand.
Blaze is missing out on this by not completing the mate bond. I will find some way to show him. He is missing this part of how mate bonds work and how they take away all of the guesswork. There could have been a moment when his mother told his father to run to get help. Instead, his father chose to fight beside her because he could not leave her behind.
For a moment, Kaida could sympathize with Blaze's parents even though she had never met them. She could see an image of their dragons fighting in the middle of the sky and pleading with her mate to find help through their bond. Since neither of them had survived the attack, Blaze could only speculate about what happened. If he would not participate in a mate bond so he could see for himself what it was about and how his parents could choose what they did, then she could not force him. She wished that he would so he could let go of the anger that he clearly held onto about his parents and finally be relieved from the pain, but the only way she could take that pain away from him was to show him how a mate bond worked. Without the ability to do that, he would continue to feel this way and hurt himself by holding onto it.
"I guess it's useless to dwell on things I cannot change right now. The dimension somehow came back after I pulled it from his flame. Tell me things I can change if I can do nothing right now for Blaze. I need a win right now. If that means just accomplishing a small task, then so be it."
The boys looked at each other, and Enzo cleared his throat. "Well, we have one idea."
“We storm the castle,” her mates said together.
Kaida's stomach twisted at the plan the guys had come up with. She understood that storming the castle was the best course of action. The only way to save all of her people was to take the throne back, but her people would not only be those on the mainland; it would also include those who were left behind on the island, and storming the castle meant risking those people on both sides.
"Okay," Kaida sighed, "so what’s the plan?"
Enzo was the first person to start talking. "The best course of action would be coming from behind the castle. There are entry points inside the wall's confines that would give us the best opportunity for a surprise attack. One way to do this correctly with minimal casualties would be to come up from behind, using the mountains and trees as a shroud to lessen our visibility. The only problem with this plan is that my father knows I know the weakest points of our defenses, and he can prepare for our strategy. If that's the case, he could have the entire army waiting for us where we least expect them."
"How large is the kingdom's army?" Beckett asked.
"Five thousand men. All are heavily trained in their dragon form, magic, and hand-to-hand combat. Another thousand men are mostly trained in aerial attacks with their magic and dragon form. Another thousand men are trained in archery and understand how to use the weapon that catapults Spears designed to take down a fully grown dragon. So, seven thousand all together."
The solemnness in Enzo's voice was telling. Enzo knew the odds they were all facing with this plan. With a kingdom having so many people to fight to protect, the kingdom's army was much larger than what it had on the island. There was a good chance they would lose unless they devised a plan that would allow them to get a jump on the kingdom's army. They just needed the opportunity for the five of them to get into the area where the king would be fighting. Once the king was killed, the rest of the army would stop fighting.
"How many men does the king have on guard to keep him safe?" Arlo questioned.
