Page 43 of Dragon Claimed

Brad looked guilty. "No. I don't know what happened. I saw Prince Blaze shift into his dragon first. I think the guy noticed me standing there because I was hit with something, and then everything went black. I woke up to see them like dots in the sky."

"Good, Brad, you did really well. Thank you for the information. It helped us more than you know."

Brad nodded and walked off toward the town. Enzo walked over to the building that once held Blaze and punched the wall. None of them walked toward him as he belted out a roar before striking the wall again. Beckett could feel inside the mate bonds that Enzo's rage had a reason behind it. Enzo recognized the person whom Brad was talking about. If that was the case, his anger meant something more than just him recognizing who took Blaze from them.

"Enzo, who was with Blaze?"

Enzo roared before taking a deep breath to center himself. "It was my fucking father."

Enzo's body shook with rage as the image of his father came to his mind, and his description left Brad's mouth. There was no denying that it was his father who came to the island, attacked his mate, and took Blaze from his cage. Those were tactics that Enzo knew were in Gemar's Art of War. How he managed to get Blaze's power to burn through the warded bars was still a mystery, but it was without a doubt Gemar who stole Blaze from them.

"It was my fucking father!" Enzo bellowed again as his fist connected with the stone wall. He felt the skin on his knuckles split open, and the warmth of his blood trickled down his fingers onto the ground. "That is why he created that barrier that we encountered. He did it so we could not enter the kingdom while he was away. It could have alerted his forces and bogged us down, so we'd be easy pickin's for his army."

Beckett growled. "That makes sense. He created the barrier to keep us from entering the kingdom when he came here while the island's defenses were down. Clever bastard."

"But why leave the island untouched and only take Blaze?" Arlo asked no one in particular. "Why not take Kaida, too? He knows how valuable she is and how powerful her magic is. She is way more of an asset than Blaze, no offense to him."

Esen scoffed. "He probably thought if he took Kaida, we would go in to get her back with the entirety of the island behind us. The people love her here. Blaze is just a bit less beloved by the people."

"No. He wouldn't care about that. He wants Blaze for something in particular," Enzo told them, leaning his head against the cold stone of the wall behind him.

"What could that be? Blaze isn't like us. We are all connected to Kaida, but he isn't," Beckett explained.

Enzo let it roll around in his head to find an answer. Blaze was not special in any way outside of being the most powerful Ember Dragon on the island. That is how he became the prince of the Ember Dragons. He was not connected to Kaida, but how would his father even know that? He knew Blaze was a mate of Kaida's, but that was it.

There is something we are missing here.

No kidding.

What are we missing? How is Blaze different from us that could benefit my father in any way?

Arlo haphazardly raised his hands and made a sideways face. "Could it be a bargaining chip? Blaze not being mated to Kaida would mean she would want him back. He knows that he is one of her mates. Anyone with a fated mate would do anything to protect them, including getting them back if captured."

Enzo leaned his head from the left to the right and back to his left. "Maybe? I don't know. I have never seen my father use this tactic before. Even if it is like him to do something like this, he never has in the past. He would leave someone dead before capturing them to be his prisoner. 'Leverage' isn't a word in his dictionary."

"Oh, wonderful. Someone who would rather leave bodies like our brother's," Beckett snarled.

Enzo had to admit that he felt a wave of anger at the idea of his father holding Blaze and would easily kill him if he found it necessary. As much as the guy pissed him off, he was still one of Kaida's mates. That made him family since they had bonded to Kaida.

"I don't even know where to begin to get him back. If my father captured him after putting up a barrier to guard the kingdom from us getting in, we are limited in what we can do."

Beckett shook his head and laughed. "Wrong."

"How am I wrong?"

"I think you forgot that we have one of the strongest weapons in the kingdom. Kaida is strong enough to blast that barrier like she did around the island. She's literally the key to the kingdom; We utilize her to knock out the defenses, and then we walk right into the kingdom."

Enzo leaned his back against the wall and bowed his head. "I doubt that it would be that easy. My father could have set up an alert when someone attacked the barrier so he would be ready for us. That's how it was with the island. We always knew when people tried to get off of the island."

Beckett looked at the others, and they shared a look—not as if it was a revelation but more of an "I told you so."

"She can still get us into the kingdom to get Blaze out of there," Beckett told him.

"I don't think that is smart. We must gather those who want to fight with us immediately and storm the kingdom. We need to be ready for an attack because it is surely coming. Gemar was here. With our barrier down, we didn't even know it. We need to do something about that," Arlo countered.

Enzo scoffed. "There's a slim chance of that happening. It would be better to have a powerful Witch to help us build the barrier. Adrien is gone. She would have been the best person to help us build a barrier here so there wouldn't be a surprise attack from my father and his army."

"Would he really be stupid enough to attack us here? This is our home turf. He is rarely here, so he does not know the land as well as we do. We could disappear on this island and reappear exactly where we want to be to ambush them when they least expect it. If your father is as smart as we think he is, he won't be coming here to start this war. He is waiting for us to bring it to him," Arlo explained.

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