Chapter 216

Chapter 216: Chapter 216

Five moon cycles. That’s how long Dron and Tempest had been in the settlement with all of the others trying to get ready for the journey to come.

Honestly, it amazed Dron. He was sure that it would take a long time. That it would be ages until he saw the shores of Thraqe again, but with the dedication of all the people around him and the fact that they were running out of usable resources in Skoq, the start of the journey happened much faster than he thought was possible.

He stood on the deck of the larger of the four ships.

He stared out into the distance where he could see the very edge of the Skoq shoreline. The aggressive and intense landscape looked almost beautiful as it drifted off into the distance.

Dron let out a deep breath and forced himself to look away from the dwindling landscape.

Tempest walked up next to him and wrapped one of her arms around his waist. She squeezed slightly. Dron reveled in the feeling.

"You should be down below trying to get some rest," Dron whispered in her direction.

She chuckled and stood away from him a bit, leaning against the railing of the ship.

"You forget that I’ve been on this journey before. I’m going to have more than enough time to go to sleep." She grabbed hold of Dron’s shirt, pulling him a little closer to her. At first, Dron assumed that it was because she wanted to give him a kiss, but the concerned look on her face let him know that she was searching his eyes for something else.

He waited for her to talk.

"You know you can talk to me, right? Is everything okay?" she asked him, making sure to keep his gaze.

Just as always when she looked at him, Dron felt bare, as if his entire soul was on display.

"I’m..." He couldn’t bring the word to come out of his mouth and hoped that she would understand what he meant without him having to actually say it.

"You’re scared," Tempest muttered.

"Yes, unbelievably so."

"Because you think that we can’t win?"

"No, I mean, it’s going to be a long process, and there’s a strong possibility that we might not. I’m more scared of the fact that we might. Things could change for us. For everyone here. It’s the unknown that I’m afraid of."

"I can understand that." Tempest nodded her head as she swiped her palms down the front of his chest. "I can understand what it’s like not to know what’s going to happen. You have to have faith that everything will turn out okay. We may not be prepared for what’s to come, but I have no doubt that as long as we work together, we can get through anything."

Dron nodded his head and pulled her in close before he pressed a kiss to her forehead. She was always a fountain of truth for him. A fountain of strength.

"How can you just stand there as if the world isn’t shifting under our feet?" Aliq groaned as he leaned over the edge of the ship.

Dron hadn’t realized that he was so close to them.

"You don’t look too good," Dron commented, and Tempest elbowed him in the ribs. Dron didn’t realize that he was smirking at the man.

"I’m sure I don’t look so good. I feel like my insides are about to come out of my body." Aliq groaned again as he dry-heaved and leaned further over the boat.

"That’s only going to make it worse, you know," Tempest said and walked over to Aliq and helped him away from the edge.

"If you have any other suggestions, I’m all ears." Aliq groaned as he sat down on a small crate filled with items everyone thought would be useful on the long journey.

"You have to pick a specific spot on the horizon to focus on so your body doesn’t feel the movement," Gerax spoke up as he walked closer to where the small group was slowly starting to form.

Dron looked around at the other people that were on the ship with him.

Crilium and Mexyn were below deck, along with quite a few alphas and the majority of the human settlement.

As far as strategies go, it wasn’t great for there to be so many alphas on the different boats, but Dron knew it would make some of the other Omegas feel more at ease.

A lot of the humans were doing their very best to work with the alphas around them, but a lot of them were still a little shaky when it came to being around all the different alphas. They were all worried that something would happen to set them off and then it would be a massacre. Dron would do everything in his power to make sure that nothing like that would happen.

Unfortunately, they were about to be stuck out on the water for a long while, and there was no telling what was going to happen in the future. He only hoped that by the time they made it to Thraqe, he still had a united group and not a bunch of women who were too scared to help them.

Dron was grateful that he wouldn’t have to think about that for a long time. They would be on this trip for at least another four double moon cycles.

"You know, for a strong soldier, I thought you’d have a stronger stomach than this." Dron teased Aliq and went to sit down next to him.

Aliq groaned and put his head down between his legs. The tip about him keeping something in the distance in his vision wasn’t really working.

"Well, Mark Chief, all my experience was on the land of Skoq. You didn’t tell me I would have to prove my worth on the ground that moves. It’s not natural."

Gerax and Tempest sat just opposite of Aliq, the four of them all sitting together in a small group.

Dron never felt less uncomfortable when it came to being in groups. He had spent so much time trying to avoid people or people trying to avoid him that now, when people willingly brought him into the group, it was odd for him. He felt like an imposter or some sort of spy.

He hoped that one day he would get over that, but he didn’t see it happening any time soon.

Tempest looked over to the side and gasped.

"Oh! What’s that?" She jumped up from her seat and rushed to the other side of the narrow ship.

Dron instantly thought it was some sort of attack. It would be strange since he was sure that the rest of the people on Skoq hadn’t developed any type of water travel yet, but more improbable things had happened in the past.

He calmed down when he realized the bright smile on Tempest’s face.

She was simply looking at some of the animals in the water.

All of them, Aliq included, got up and walked over to the edge where Tempest was standing.

"Those are Veylunes," Gerax spoke up.

Dron had heard about the creatures in his studies, and he’d even seen one on his journey to Skoq, but he never paid much attention to them. They always seemed like animals people with better fortunes would see. They did look magical. He could understand why Tempest was so taken with them. As a creature, they were beautiful. They had a long body and a pointy nose, smooth greyish skin, but their fins were multicolored and floated like a trail as the creature swam. It painted a rainbow in the water wherever it went.

"Wow, are there a lot of them in the water?" Tempest questioned.

Aliq answered this time. "Not as many as there should be. Unfortunately, they were hunted pretty severely by the people of Skoq. They tend to swim right up to the shore."

Tempest pouted, and Dron wrapped his arms around her to give her some support. It never ceased to amaze him how compassionate the woman was even after all that she’d been through.

"What are you all looking at?" one of the newer alphas spoke.

Dron heard him coming up from below deck but didn’t make a big deal out of it. The new group was already not very well trusted, and he wanted to at least give the illusion that they were being accepted. He wouldn’t be on edge around them unless they gave him a reason to be. Still, he was always ready for one of them to give up the pretense that they would just follow him because Dron had taken out their leader. So far, no one had challenged him.

"We’re looking at a group of Veylunes," Dron answered, looking over his shoulder.

"They look like the dolphins on my planet. On Earth, if a ship is followed by dolphins, it’s supposed to be good luck," Tempest continued.

"Actually, having a Veylune close to the ship here on Ustea is good luck as well."

"Ahh, that’s just a fairytale," Dron spoke.

Gerax retorted, "Fairytale or not, it’s what people believe, and you and I both know it’s not what’s true but what people believe that drives the narrative."

Dron couldn’t argue about that.

"Speaking of fairytales, are you trying to revive one yourself?" The new alpha, Gushex, spoke up.

Dron looked over to him.

"What are you talking about?" He followed Gushex’s eyes and realized they were locked on the connection of Dron’s hand and Tempest’s shoulder.

"Tempest is my fated mate. There is nothing fairytale about that. If you are questioning it, then that’s a problem you’re going to have to deal with on your own," Dron replied.

He was getting a little tired of people constantly going against what he said when it came to Tempest. In the moon cycles that it took to build the ships to seaworthy quality, nearly every alpha in the land had questions about his relationship with Tempest. Most of them thought it was some kind of tonic he used on her to get her to be so compliant. Some saw it as an abomination that a human and a Ustean could mate. Others saw it as some sort of glimmer of hope. There was nothing false about what Dron and Tempest had.

Gushex shrugged his shoulders twice. "No, I’m not talking about your matehood. Anyone with eyes can see that it’s real. I’m talking about that." He jerked his chin in Dron’s direction.

Dron was still confused about what the man was talking about. He stepped away from Tempest a bit.

Gushex reached forward, a little too quickly, causing Tempest to jerk back and Dron to growl.

"I’m not crazy. You’re the leader. There is no challenge coming from me." Gushex slowed his movement but continued to reach forward until he grabbed Dron’s hand. He wiped hard against Dron’s skin.

"These are real."

It took Dron a second to figure out what Gushex was looking at.

The marks on his hands were no longer black and gray as they had been his entire life. They were ivory with dark borders, and they didn’t disappear with pressure.

Dron snatched his hand back, but subtly, he looked over the rest of the marks on his arms.

The pigment in his marks had nearly vanished all the way up to his elbow on one arm and up to his shoulder on the other.

He hadn’t paid any attention to them, but it seemed like the more he mated with Tempest, the more he was losing the black marks on his body.

He gulped hard, and his eyes jerked over to Gerax, who was now staring at his arms like he was about to start weeping like a child.

"It’s nothing, just a reaction from the intense heat of Skoq." Dron tried to move past the conversation, but that wasn’t about to happen.

"What do you mean?" Tempest turned to him and questioned. "I thought you weren’t affected by the heat like I was?" She was confused, but all Dron really wanted her to do was to stop asking questions. The sooner they could stop talking about this, the better.

"No, I may not know much. After all, I am nothing but a savage from the Forbidden Lands of Skoq, but I know what those marks mean." Gushex squinted his eyes at Dron.

"It doesn’t mean anything." Dron spoke through gritted teeth. All he wanted was for him to get the point.

Stop. Talking.

"No, I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. I suppose it’s because I’ve never seen it in real life, only in books." Aliq chimed in, and Dron could feel his patience starting to wane.

"What the hell are you all talking about? What do the marks on his arms mean? I thought it was supposed to be like that, an indicator of sorts where you are meant to be in the social classes. It’s ridiculous to me, but that is what I was told it was when I first got here."

"Yes, that’s true. We measure alphas by their marks." Gerax nodded his head but left the rest of the explanation hanging in the air.

Dron hoped that would be enough of an explanation for Tempest.

Of course it wasn’t.

She huffed and turned to look at Dron. "You’re keeping something from me. You promised you wouldn’t do that."

"They don’t mean anything. It’s nothing we need to talk about."

"I disagree. In fact, I think this is something you need to talk about with anyone who will listen. The old ones will see those marks, and they will follow you into the dark pits of despair if you order it so," Gushex spoke.

"Why? I thought his marks meant that he was cursed." Tempest turned to Gushex, who finally learned how to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t answer Tempest.

Tempest turned her head to look at Gerax, who was doing everything in his power not to look at him.

She turned to Dron, disappointment clear on her face.

He wasn’t going to get out of this without telling her the story.

"It’s not me. It can’t be."

"Tell me what the marks mean, Dron," Tempest spoke softly.

"You’ll look at me differently."

Tempest raised her hand and pressed it against his cheek. "Never."

"Those marks mean he is a descendant of the lost people. Our original ancestors." Gerax finally started talking.

Tempest turned to look at him, still confused.

"Those marks mean Dron is our true king."