15. Kaida

“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.

Enzo smirked. "That is the one downfall of my father: hubris. He believes he is invincible, so he does not surround himself with anyone to protect him. He believes a good king should be able to rely on himself and his wits to keep him and his family safe. He is not guarded in the least. If we can get the opportunity to attack my father one-on-one, we can overthrow the kingdom."

"That is the most insane thing I have ever heard. You should always have somebody to watch over you, especially if you are a king. Most tyrants have royal guards; it’s part and parcel of the role," Esen reported.

"My father is not a trusting man. He believes anybody with his back is best positioned to stab it. He had kept secrets from me my entire life because he feared I would usurp him one day, that I would plan to kill him to take over before he was ready to hand over the kingdom."

"Well, maybe if he were less of a dick, no one would try to kill him," Esen scoffed.

Esen’s statement made the guys laugh out loud. Kaida admitted that even she thought his statement was funny. The truth in his words caused everyone’s tension to die down.

Beckett looked at Enzo and asked, "How can we access the kingdom’s back area to make this plan work?"

Enzo thought about it for a second. "We will have to go to the outskirts of the border. From there, we can move into position."

Kaida knew how they could do that. "We could start on my family’s land. A river runs from the ocean that we could fly above and then cut into the land. My family would keep our secret safe."

"How are you so sure about that?" Enzo asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Inside the mate bonds, Enzo wasn’t the only one wondering about that. They all wanted to ask that question, but Enzo was the only one brave enough to do it.

"I am their daughter. As loyal as they are to the throne, they would be more loyal to me. If I am standing against the king and queen, they will trust I have a reason why. They know how the king and queen are and will always do right by the throne and keep the peace inside of the kingdom. They have told me they have had to heavily say their input to keep the king from making drastic mistakes."

Arlo looked over to Enzo. "And you wonder why we people here on the island were not fans of your father. It is the same here. The only reason people started to thrive on this island was because of the work and sacrifices of our parents. Before they died, our parents truly encouraged everyone on this island to create the businesses that are now here. Sure, we had some, but not nearly as many as we do now."

"I understand that life on this island has been difficult. One thing I wanted to change when I took my place on the throne was to change the laws that kept the people on this island to be abolished."

Kaida nodded in agreement. "This is true. This was one of the things we discussed that we would change when we took the throne."

"That’s good to hear, but we must take matters into our own hands. The king is now the main enemy, and we must take him off the throne before things worsen. Since you two fled from the kingdom to return here, it is only a matter of time before the king and queen send their army here to kill us all," Beckett pointed out. “We must make the first move if we stand any chance of coming out on top.”

Kaida knew he was right. They painted targets on their backs the day they chose to flee the kingdom. The king knew he could not control them, and because of that, it would be time to attack the island to ensure they would not show the entire kingdom who the king really was. The last thing the king needed was for his son to expose that he could control anyone he wished who was a dragon shifter.

"Do we even have enough people to pull this off?" Kaida asked the group.

All of them shrugged.

"We may have five hundred people that are willing to come with us," Beckett finally answered.

"That can be more than enough if we plan everything to a T. If we have the right plan and execute it perfectly, we may only need five more people. That would be just enough people to remove the guards inside the council. Well, we five can get to the King and Queen," Enzo said to them.

Kaida knew they were right. They only needed a handful of people to execute their plan truly. Having as many people as they possibly could has been beneficial in case their plan goes sideways. They would need to hold another meeting to have a better head count of how many people were willing to sacrifice themselves for a better cause. Even though it did not go well last time, and many people argued this was not something they were willing to do, if they explained it well enough that this would lead to everyone being able to return to the mainland, maybe they would be able to pull enough people to do this.

"Are there enough people who are not mated and have nothing to lose that we could do this?" Kaida asked no one in particular.

She knew her question made everyone feel like they should be second-guessing their plan. However, she needed to discuss this plan further and possibly only take a minimum number of people so the casualties would only be a few if anything went wrong. The last thing Kaida wanted was to show the island that she was willing to sacrifice everyone for her plans. That was exactly what the Council, the king, and the queen currently do, leading everyone to dislike their role.

"There is a chance that we will have enough people. Over the last couple of years, we have been grooming people to be in the island’s army possibly," Arlo answered her.

She pushed a little more, "How many people is that?"

Beckett caught her eye, "From our last count, around five hundred."

Enzo looked back at them. "Do you think we can find more?"

Beckett shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe when we have those two hundred, we can stand up and show everybody else how willing they are to keep their people safe."

It was the best idea they had.

Enzo stood up and walked over to the window facing the rest of the island. He sighed, and his shoulders sagged. She could feel that he was thinking something. He was unsure if he should even bring it up, but he knew that it was a possible plan of attack that could get them further inside than their original plan. "What if we managed to find enough people to come with us and evaluate all of the kingdom’s entry points? Do some recon? We can then return that information and know if our plan will be well-executed."

Kaida knew what he meant. She could feel that the others also understood what he was talking about. Kaida did not like this plan, especially when Enzo suggested that a small team of people fly to the kingdom and test its weak points, but they would not make it home if the king spotted any of them.

She wasn’t going to stand for that. "If you are caught, they will kill you. This plan is not the best idea."

"I think it is," Enzo countered her. "I may have known the weak points before I came here, but now that my father knows I stand against him, there is a greater chance he will send the men to the weakest points. If I know what they are, then he certainly does. If he sends everybody to those weak points, the normally strongest areas are weak. We need to know if that is the case."

She could feel that the other guys agreed with Enzo, and a twist in her gut told her this would end badly. She did not want to lose her mates because of a bad plan.

"NO! I will not let you guys do this. It is suicide."

Beckett’s calm energy flowed through her, bringing her anger down to a simmer. "Don’t allow your fear to overrun your mind right now. This is very much how armies do things. Any general inside of an army will tell a small group of people to run reconnaissance like this. Knowing exactly where to make our attack is the best course of action. What if the point at which we originally wanted to enter the kingdom is now heavily guarded? We will lose the moment that we try.

"What if this is exactly what the king expects us to do? What if this is exactly what he wants us to do so he can take all of us out before we can try?" Kaida pleaded.

"What if we are all thinking too much about this? My father is many things, but he is too arrogant to expect us to have a plan like this. He often told me I would never be a great general in our army. After he announced that I would be taking over the throne soon, he first told the council that someone would need to step forward and help me manage the situation around me if we were ever attacked."

"Your father did not believe in you? That is cold," Esen said with disdain.

"That is how I grew up. My father drilled me on many strategies and explained to me many times how I should run the army once I took over. He thought I was too dense to take in the information. If there was any new strategy that I suggested, he immediately shot it down."

Beckett growled. "I think I would have killed my father in his sleep if this was how he treated me growing up."

Aww. They are so cute when they get protective over each other.

The Great Dragon Knows what they are doing.

"Another reason was to ensure that my father held onto the throne. He told many people on his counsel that this was exactly how you parent. This was how you raised a king who will rule the world and remain on the throne."

This time, Kaida growled. "He is more delusional than I thought. That is not at all how you should parent a child. If you want to groom them into the perfect king or queen, you need to teach them grace, humility, acceptance, compassion, and adaptability."

"I agree. My father would disagree. I grew to be the man I am today because of my mother, not my father."

"Remind me to thank her before I kill her."

Enzo beamed at her bloodthirsty moment. "Good to know. I may just do that."

"So, you believe that this is the only thing we can do to ensure the safety of everyone who chooses to join us?"

Enzo nodded. "I do."

"Then it is settled," Beckett told them with authority in his voice. "We’ll leave in the middle of the night. We will assess all of the kingdom’s injury points ourselves. It will show those who want to join us that we will take this leadership seriously. Doing this mission ourselves shows we will put their safety above our own."

"NO!"

"Kaida, I understand your hesitancy and that you want to keep us safe. However, we must show our citizens we will do these things. If we only allow grunts to oversee this kind of work, then they will see us as a dictatorship. They will see that we see them as unimportant. That is the last thing we want to show this island. We want to show them that you matter and that everyone matters. We will lead by example, not by barking orders."

"But why does it have to be you four? Why do I have to possibly sacrifice my mates for this when we’ve only barely found each other?"

She understood that she sounded whiney and that she was being selfish right now, but that did not matter to her. She finally had all four of them and would do whatever she needed to keep them. She had lost Enzo once and didn’t want to lose him again. If his father caught them, he would kill Enzo without hesitation.

"We need to do this. It is not up for debate."

"Then I will join you."

"No," they all screamed in unison.

"If you believe that any of us will be the targets on-site, you will be the greatest target of all. Gemar knows exactly what you are by now. Just your mere presence is a threat to his throne. Your dragon is the one that will rule us all. You are much too precious to risk."

"Do not give me any of that Alpha male bullshit!"

"That is not at all what we are trying to do. We just mean that you will be the only target if anyone spots us. That is too high of a risk."

"Then what am I to do while you’re off risking your lives for this mission?"

"Show the island you will take care of them. Show your presence and tell people of our plans. We all need as much exposure as possible to make the decisions that will improve the lives of everyone we rule."

"I am literally being told to sit here and look pretty while the men go off to fight?"

"No, you are here to look pretty and show the island that we will handle things ourselves until we need our army." Beckett asked Enzo, "Isn’t that what your father doesn’t do?"

Enzo nodded. "Yes. He always sends a team of grunts to do the dirty work. Granted, it is highly trained grunts, but still. He doesn’t risk himself. Not even to discuss peace."

Kaida remembered her father being sent to discuss a treaty with the neighboring kingdoms before. Enzo was right. The King and Queen never risked themselves.

"Fine. Just know I am not happy about this," Kaida growled.

"Well," Enzo looked to the rest of them, "There is a way we can make this up to you before we leave."

They all made a rumble inside of their chests at her. The scent of their arousal filled the room. Kaida looked at them, wearing a smirk. "Go on."