Page 120 of Taming the Kraken

“How?” Levi asked, narrowing his eyes at Kali. He didn’t like where this was going, and he had a feeling he knew what she was going to say.

“We kill Mikah,” Kali said simply.

“No! That is not an option.” Levi growled angrily.

“Then this war is your family’s burden to bear. And what will happen …” Kali shook her head. “You’ve seen the visions.” She looked at Reiya. “Those will happen if Mikah lives. There is no way around it.” The scale had been tipped in the favor of the fairies already with Alexa. But now there was Mikah. Kali inwardly rolled her eyes. The family had no idea about the connection between Alexa and Mikah. Mikah’s heart was that of a primordial … a heart he shouldn’t have been given. A direct interference from a goddess. Someone who shifted the balance in an unnatural way.

“Mikah lives,” Reiya said firmly.

Kali nodded. “Selene said the same thing. Instead, she is preparing behind the scenes again …” She clicked her tongue. “Fine. I’ll need Mikah, but I need him away from the princess. I’ll need to keep him for at least a week. I should be able to extract the sprite from him. He will just need to accept time away from his princess.”

“Is there no other way?” Levi asked, frowning. Mikah was not going to like hearing this at all.

“There are other ways, but this is the best way. And you should be happy I’m even offering my services. I am retired, you know!” Kali hissed at the ungrateful deity.

“We’ll convince him,” Reiya said quietly. “But about Mikah … you didn’t tell me what this new heart did to him.”

Shiva smiled and leaned back on her heels. “Yes, so about Mikah …”

A woman with golden-brown hair loosely pulled back walked out in front of the men.

“Wendy, you can’t—” The man who acted like he was in charge began, but with one sharp glance from the woman, he shut up. It was clear she was the one in charge of this group.

“My prince.” Wendy bowed her head slightly. “There is a lot that you don’t know about. Ryker is a member of our group. We don’t want to hurt him. We’re trying to figure out what we must do with him now.” The woman paused for a moment. “You’re not supposed to know about us. We’re a group that doesn’t have attachments and stays secret. We don’t seek fame or fortune. We act in secret and die without mourners.” The woman sighed. “I don’t have any choice but to explain. We are called The King’s Thunder. We are a secret organization that has been in existence since the first Dragon King of the West. We are the invisible shields of the dragon kingdom. Our existence is kept secret. We often put ourselves in danger and go on suicide missions. We don’t want our deaths to cause worry or trouble for the kings.”

“We act independently from the kingdom. Our job is to protect the kingdom no matter what. We don’t have family members. We don’t take mates. We never risk attachments.” The man behind Wendy spoke up and she nodded her head.

“Ryker was on a special mission. He was working with a group of dragons that were suspected of organizing a rebellion against your father. He infiltrated their group and was relaying what he found to us. He ended up getting caught and suffered an injury that caused his memory loss. We thought he’d been killed, and when we realized what actually happened … well, we couldn’t take him out of the kingdom after you found him. We’ve been watching and waiting for him to come back to us. His memories are finally returning, at least enough that he was able to find us. He belongs with the Thunders again. However, he can’t have his mate,” Wendy said firmly, and Brian scoffed loudly.

Brian shifted Ryker over to Mikah, who took the unconscious man in his arms. “Let me start with this. Ryker belongs to me. He is no longer part of the Thunders. He swore upon his flame to serve me. I have taken him as my right-hand man. His life belongs to me. You understand what it means to take what belongs to the dragon prince?” His voice dropped to a low growl as they lowered their heads in reverence. Taking from the dragon royals was a death sentence. Dragons were already possessive creatures. No one took from a royal dragon and lived to talk about it. “I understand the purpose of your group. However, I disagree with the secretive nature of it. The king should be aware of your existence. You want to be able to act independently from the kingdom and do your job by any means necessary. But you are not invisible and shouldn’t be treated as such. Your lives should be honored. And your burials should be recognized.”

“What was that device you had on his neck?” Mikah asked with a low growl, noticing the slight red irritation on Ryker’s throat.

“It was keeping him sedated. This has never happened before, and we were trying to figure out how to move forward. Ryker has a memory full of secrets. And with him having a mate, he was fighting staying with us. We needed him to be … quiet while we analyzed the situation.” Wendy shrugged unapologetically as she looked over at Ryker. “He is a very skilled warrior. And honestly, having him by your side … you couldn’t have picked a better dragon.” Wendy inwardly sighed. She didn’t want to hand Ryker over, but there wasn’t anything she could do. If Ryker swore upon his flame to serve the prince, there wasn’t a thing anyone could do. That was a binding agreement. And this meant he belonged to the dragon prince. In all senses … Ryker was his.

Brian smiled and nodded his head. “Now on that … we agree completely.”

“How were you able to find us? We had the whole area enchanted,” Wendy asked.

“Well, you didn’t make it easy on us.” Jasper snorted. “Anyone else would have given up on the trail. But we weren’t about to give up on Ryker. He’s part of the family now. Besides, we’re running out of time, what with the shadow that’s approaching.” Jasper was curious to see if they had information about this.

Wendy nodded and frowned slightly. “Our spies have reported a hidden army. We aren’t sure about all of the creatures, but we’re certain there are several Unblessed fairies in the cloaked army.”

“Are you sure?” Alexa was mildly alarmed. Unblessed fairies heading toward Elysia? They would be able to enter. This was something they needed to be prepared for.

“Yes, we’re certain. But there are other creatures there as well. We don’t know the purpose, and we’re just keeping an eye on them. They weren’t moving toward the dragon kingdom, so they were just being observed. We have a scout keeping an eye on the shadow.”

“Thank you, Wendy. In the future, maybe we can set up a better arrangement?”

Wendy shook her head. “It’s best that we remain a secret. We can work better this way.”

Brian frowned. “You’re protecting my kingdom. We can keep your organization secret, but we will honor your warriors. I’ll reach out to you again another time and we can discuss this in greater detail.” Brian looked up at Alexa. “Let’s head to Elysia. We need to warn them about the threat.”

Levi, better head back to Elysia. There is an army of Unblessed fairies heading that way. Ken reached out to Levi, already knowing Alexa wanted her parents to know about this. Unblessed fairies were easy enough to deal with for Ken and Levi. The problem was what else was cloaked in that army.

We’ll meet you back there. We have information too, Levi’s voice echoed into his mind.

“Are we flying or teleporting? Just wondering, because Ryker is DRAGon his feet.” Mikah snickered and looked at the quiet room. “What? Come on, that’s funny.” He looked over at Jasper, who was chuckling quietly. “Thank you, Jasper. At least someone else here has a sense of humor.”