Page 59 of Dragon Claimed

Kaida heard his voice growing weak with what he said. Kaida screamed as he closed his eyes, and his wings flattened to reveal Gemar laughing harder than she had ever seen him. It was a belly laugh as he watched her mate lose consciousness from his attack.

"This is why I continued to banish their kind. Do you see how weak they are? Surely you can see why I would have wanted you to be mated to my son only. His dragon and magic are far superior! That is what I want for my grandchildren and kingdom!"

Kaida screamed as she forced a beam of plasma from her hands toward Gemar. He jumped away in time before going into another fit of laughter. She continued to push her magic out and shoot beam after beam at Gemar, her attack growing more frenzied with each one that left her hands. Kaida dropped her hands after a few minutes, feeling her energy leaving her from her attack.

"You do not deserve my son either. You are weaker than I thought. Yes. I will kill you now. My son can find another to impregnate to give us an heir."

The gathering of magic he called to him was more than she had felt from him previously. Kaida looked over at Blaze and found him knocked out from the attack. Kaida pulled on the mate bonds and produced the strongest shield she could muster.

She layered the shield with each element, allowing Enzo's storm magic to be on the outside. There was a flash of light before she felt the magic connect with her shield. The light became blinding as the lightning surged against her shield. She closed her eyes and kept her hands in the air to push her power into the shield. There was a crackling of energy as each bolt struck, stronger than the last. She could feel Gemar pushing all his strength and power into this attack to prove he was again the most powerful. Kaida's brow broke out in a sweat from keeping the shield in place. Each layer of the magic would fall away after the energy was depleted. In the bonds, she felt each mate's urgency to run to her as they felt their magic break away. Kaida remained where she was and allowed Gemar's attack to continue. Soon, the light behind her eyelids faded away, becoming black. She opened her eyes, blinked a few times to clear her vision, and allowed the cloud to disappear before she dropped her hands.

Gemar stood there dumbfounded as Kaida emerged from his attack unscathed. She smiled toothily at him and wiggled her fingers for added effect.

"You only have one strategy in your playbook, Gemar, and you just used it. I don't need to concern myself with you because you were never going to emerge as the victor," Kaida said to him as she lifted her hands to her sides with her magic flaring at full force. "Your reign of terror is over. The Kingdom of Dragaal is mine."

Kaida called on the power of each of her mates and allowed it to swirl around her. The rumbling above, like Gemar’s, caught his attention first. The thunder was louder than his, and the lightning cracked around him. The bolts were thicker and searing with more energy than his did against her. With the Terrain magic, she called for the vines from the trees around them to spring up from the ground and grab his wrists and ankles to keep him in place. The winds picked up and created a vortex around Gemar. Kaida threw in the flames of the Ember magic for dramatic effect. With the Tidal magic, Kaida encased half of his body inside a block of ice. Gemar's eyes were filled with fear as he squirmed in every way to try to release himself.

“You may wield the power of a Storm Dragon, but I wield the powers of them all.”

"Any final words?"

Gemar screamed for his army to come to his aid. Kaida shook her head before lifting her hands toward the sky and throwing them back down. Lightning crashed into Gemar, and she could hear his screams. She pushed the vortex into him as the lightning fell away, and another round of pain-filled screams from Gemar rang in her ears. She threw her hands outward, and the magic diseased. Gemar fell to his knees, his clothes and skin bubbling from the flames. She noticed the rippling around him as he tried to shift into his dragon. Kaida frowned as she noticed he was too weak to do so. This time, Kaida called only her plasma magic to her hands. Gemar was suffering and couldn't run away. She took a deep breath before throwing a pillar of plasma into Gemar's body. She gave him only that mercy.

There was no scream this time.

Kaida dropped control of her magic and banished it inside her. Gemar's body was mangled to the point he was barely recognizable. Her shoulders sagged as her energy drained from her body now that the battle was over. Before she knew it, she was kneeling with her mates swarming her.

"It's over. It's finally over," Kaida whispered to them.

Enzo wrapped her into his embrace first, kissing the top of her head. "Shh, you can rest now."

She thought of the army fighting the islanders and looked around at everyone, "What about everyone else?"

"They all flew home once you came here with Gemar. I think he figured there was no need to kill everyone because, once he killed you, it would be over," Beckett told her. "That's why we flew here."

"What about Blaze?" Kaida looked over to where his dragon had laid and sprinted to run to him. He was in his human form now, his dragon too weak to stay in that one. Kaida pulled Blaze onto her lap and looked at the others.

"He will be fine, my love. Shifting back into his human form will allow him to spend less time healing. His dragon took on the attack, not the man. He will be weak for a day or so but will wake up as good as new."

"What do we do? Is there anything we can do to help?"

"No. We just need to get him home."

Home. Kaida yearned for her bed and wanted to sleep in the arms of her mates until her body wanted to wake up. That could be days from now; she would be fine with that.

"Sounds perfect."

The sounds of the crowd below the castle windows made Kaida's heart skip a beat. They were all cheering her name and preparing for the ceremony to name her Queen of the Dragon Kingdom. She was taken aback by the support she received once she returned from the island and announced the fall of Gemar. Nande was the first person she expected not to take the news lightly. She was quite surprised to see the former queen exclaim with happiness when she heard her mate had been killed and threw her hands around Kaida's neck.

"Thank you. Thank you, my child. You have freed me from a nightmare I couldn't seem to wake up from," she whispered into Kaida's ear.

Kaida hugged the queen back and squeezed a little harder to convey her acceptance. "You're welcome, Nande."

"You do not know what you have done. For years, I was under his spell. Nothing I could do or tried to do broke his hold on me. It was as if I was locked inside a box within my mind. I could see and hear what I did but had no control. I tried to fight him, but he was too strong."

Kaida learned that Gemar had forced Nande to become his mate and controlled everything she did moving forward. Gemar's ability easily manipulated the mate bond, and she watched as he controlled every aspect of her life. It broke Kaida's heart that Nande had to live that way. She did know about Amy and wished she could have told others about everything Gemar had planned. He schemed from the moment he learned Nande was carrying a boy. He always wanted to allow his son to ascend the throne but puppet everything from his ability to continue his reign.

Since their return, Nande had been their biggest supporter. She welcomed her mates with open arms and signed the decree abolishing the law against the Elementals to live on the island. Nande personally flew over to the island to make it known they did not need to live there if they did not want to. Many wanted their businesses to transfer to Dragaal so they would make money once they moved. Kaida worked with Nande and Enzo to prepare for that to happen over the next week so the Elementals could move to Dragaal just in time for Kaida to be crowned.

---