Chapter 16
Everyone around him was speaking all at the same time. Blaze ignored them and kept his focus on Arena. My gods she was incredible. She had always had grace but the way she held herself so regally, back straight, head tilted slightly as she listened and eyes that could see right through a person — it mesmerized him.
She looked at him now with pride and acceptance. That helped him remain calm in the face of the slight chaos his words had caused.
“That’s a lie! King Zocor had no children and his mate is sitting right there across from you!” King Malachi said, with a little anger creeping into his voice.
“It’s true,” Arena said softly.
“How?” Reichardt directed the question to Blaze.
Blaze looked around the table as he told of his mother and Zocor’s brief encounter to comfort each other at the loss of his mother’s mate. “Zocor saved my mother. She was ready to end her life, but instead, she found that she carried life.”
“Why didn’t your mother come forward sooner to present you and why wouldn’t Zocor acknowledge you publicly?” Reichardt asked curiously.
“Many of you knew Zocor. He was honorable and would have offered to mate her to officially claim me. My mother didn’t want to put a burden on Zocor or to take away the chance for him to find his true mate. She also feared that I might be taken from her and I had become her whole world. The secret she kept and her continued mourning of her true mate eventually took its toll on her health. Before she took her last flight, she told me the truth and asked me to approach Zocor and restore her honor.”
King Malachi looked over at Arena, who remained quiet while he told the story of his heritage. She nodded her head as she spoke up to confirm Blaze’s story. “It is all true. Zocor acknowledged Blaze privately as his son but he did not publicly claim him because he thought it would have hurt me. I had not been able to bear a dragonlet. I had encouraged him to claim Blaze and over the years he often reconsidered it. Instead, we allowed a rumor to circulate that Blaze was a distant relative. Zocor was so proud of the warrior that Blaze had grown into.”
She looked sad as she continued. “Zocor’s health was beginning to fade. The mages believed that because he did not have a true mate to bond with, he became weaker. I know that Zocor wanted to claim Blaze as his son, so I offered to come before the Kings’ Council to request the break in our union.” Gasps sounded from everyone in the room except for Blaze. He remembered Arena telling him her plans before the attack. Hearing it again sounded weird.
“You planned to end your mating to King Zocor?” Malachi asked with a bit of contempt. The way the male spoke to his queen made Blaze clench his fists.
General Rainier cleared his throat. “May I speak?”
Reichardt motioned for him to proceed.
“I knew King Zocor very well. We were close friends, and he confided in me about the circumstances of Blaze’s conception.”
Blaze watched Arena’s flawless pale skin turn pink with embarrassment. It was a personal thing to end a union and discussing her inability to provide an heir for Zocor clearly hurt her.
“Can we move on with the briefing?” Blaze asked.
Reichardt agreed. “You’re right. Tell us how you came to be on the planet you ended up on?”
“When the city began to fall, I began assisting the effort to get as many of our people as possible to the temple to transport through the portal. One of the elders had been seriously injured, so I carried him to the temple. The mage leader said that nothing could be done for the elder, but that he could reopen the portal to send me. He knew that I was Zocor’s son and that my blood would be able to close the portal behind me.”
“Something must have gone wrong with the portal, because I ended up on a nearly barren planet. But after a few weeks, I discovered a second portal. The second portal sent me to another planet where I came across a small group of Drakonians.”
“Is that when you declared yourself their leader?” Malachi asked.
Blaze glared at the male. Why was he acting like that?
“Stop being an ass and let him tell his story!” Arena said angrily. He had rarely heard her raise her voice. Evidently everyone else was just as taken aback.
Blaze cleared his throat and answered the question. “I did not declare myself their leader. I helped them organize and find a better location to set up a home. They elected me their leader.”
“How long were you on this new planet before the Zyon found you?” Arena asked. It was the first time she asked him anything. He wanted to get her alone and ask her about her life here on Earth. But that would have to wait.
“Ten years,” he answered.
Another round of gasps sounded. “How is this possible? We’ve been on Earth for centuries,” King Niko said. It was the first time he had said anything.
“Probably the same way that the mage amulet and the worm holes made the Zyon reach Earth in ten years,” General Rainier said. “If only the mages had been able to come with us, we could have gotten some answers on this.”
“Did none of the mages survive?” Blazed asked with concern.
“Not that we know of. Most of the mages had to remain on Drakonia to make sure that the portals stayed open long enough to evacuate our people. As far as I know, none of them came through the portal.”
