Chapter 218

Chapter 218: Chapter 218

Dron looked out into the distance and saw the three other ships that were behind them.

Gerax was right.

He didn’t force anyone to come with him. Didn’t show his new marks to any of them. He only did what was right. It didn’t stop Dron from feeling increasingly uneasy.

What if this new revelation didn’t turn out the way the people around him thought it would?

The stories he heard about the ancestors were filled with strong, powerful leaders. Stuff of legends.

Dron wasn’t a legend. He never would be. He would always be the cursed alien that no one wanted to be around. What he was going through at the moment would change. When it was all over, they would shy away from him again.

That might happen even faster than it needed to if they all found out that people were suddenly claiming him as some sort of king.

That wasn’t who he was. He didn’t want to be a king. He just wanted to live in peace with his mate.

He wanted the pain and suffering to end.

He wanted a freedom he never thought that he would find in his lifetime.

"No."

"Dron," Tempest started, but he turned and put a hand up to get her to stop talking. He didn’t want her to try and talk him out of what he was about to say. Didn’t want her to shine a positive light on the fact that he just found out there was a real possibility that he was a descendant of a people that were massacred and nearly wiped off the face of the planet.

"No, I don’t want this to get to anyone else."

"You can’t be serious? Even after all I’ve just said, you still don’t want anyone to know?" Gerax asked.

"That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want anyone to know. I want this to stay a secret, and I’ll know if anyone else finds out who it came from." Dron looked around at the people in front of him. They all looked severely disappointed, but Dron didn’t care. He didn’t care that they thought he was making the wrong decision. He knew this was for the right. He knew that when this was all over, the people needed to find a leader that they could depend on. Someone more fitting for the job. Dron would never believe that it was him.

He glanced out into the distance again before shrugging his shoulders and letting the weight of what he just learned fall from his shoulders. He would never talk of it again if he had the choice.

He didn’t turn back to the people around him. He simply walked off to the other side of the boat.

Before he could, he peeked in the corner behind one of the boxes and saw Mikael. He didn’t even know the young boy had been up on deck with them. He was hiding away.

Dron’s heart dropped.

Slowly, Dron walked up to him and looked into the kid’s eyes.

There was no respect or joy in the kid’s eyes. In fact, Mikael looked downright furious.

"What did you hear?" Dron questioned.

"I heard everything. You’re the king," Mikael spat through clenched teeth.

"You don’t know what you heard. They were just telling stories." Dron tried his best to get the boy to reconsider what he heard.

"Now you do sound just like the High Royals. Trying to get me to believe that something I know is real isn’t."

Dron groaned and clenched his jaw. That’s not who he wanted to be compared to.

"When you first came to Tine’s camp, I wanted to end your life. I wanted you dead. It was because of you that most of my family was dead. My sister. The only Omega in our family was our only shot at living a better life, and because of you and your mate, she was taken from us. I wanted you to be evil. I thought it with all I was." Mikael stood up from where he was sitting and stared up into Dron’s face.

Dron didn’t say a word. He just let Mikael continue speaking.

"Then you started to help us out. You tried to rebuild what was broken. I could see the remorse in your eyes. Saw how you tried to guide me and everyone who needed help. Then I started to think that maybe you weren’t so evil after all. Maybe you were just being blamed for something that you had no control over."

"I didn’t have any control over it, Mikael. If I did, I would’ve never let it happen."

Dron had to lock his muscles down as his alpha instincts flared up the very second Mikael pulled back his little arms and shoved them forward into Dron’s midsection. He was young, but he was still an alpha, and Dron had just let him hit him.

"You do have a choice! You can end it all. You can give the people someone to fight for. Someone who will fight just as hard as them. I know you would. You can be the leader that everyone already knows you are. I don’t understand why you don’t see it for yourself, but we all do. Instead of that, you’re choosing to ignore it. To look away." Mikael shook his head and took a step back. "You’re leaving us to the same fate as if you were there to light the torch that destroyed all of our lives before. You have the choice to stop this, and I hear you tell them that we are never to tell anyone about this."

There was a long silence as Mikael continued to stare at Dron.

"You know, I was right. You’re not evil. You’re just a coward." He scoffed and walked away, bouncing his little shoulder against Dron’s arm aggressively as he did.

Dron wanted to call him back. Wanted to tell him there was more to the situation than he knew, but he couldn’t. He was already turning out to be a failure.

It didn’t make anything that Mikael said false.

Dron was scared. He was scared that he wouldn’t live up to the stories that he’d heard. He was scared that he would lead all of these people to destruction. Scared that his mate would be taken away from him in the same way that the old ancestor’s mate was taken from him.

He was scared of the entire situation.

He inhaled and looked across the water.

Before he could take another step, his communicator buzzed, but before he could answer it, it shut off.

Someone was trying to get in contact with him, but it was as if the signal wasn’t strong enough. Dron squinted his eyes and peered at the ships behind them. There was someone standing on the deck of the other ship, waving their hands.

He peered longer and realized that the person waving his hands was glittering as if he was draped in jewels.

Rynax.

Something was wrong.

"Gerax!" Dron called out.

"Dron?" Gerax answered, moving swiftly in his direction.

"Is your communicator working?" Dron turned to the man and asked.

Gerax lifted his wrist device up and started fiddling with some of the controls.

"It’s active, but it doesn’t seem to be able to lock onto a signal."

"Spirits above, did we not check that we could keep in communication with the other ships before we set off?"

"No...I mean...we hadn’t had the opportunity." Gerax stuttered through his words.

"Something is going on on the other ships, and I can’t hear anything on my communication device."

"Rynax and Crilium suggested that it would be better if the ships were a few spaces apart on the water in case one of us were attacked."

"And how would we know if someone was attacked if we can’t communicate with them?" Dron barked at Gerax, who visibly recoiled before he pulled his shoulders back and stood straight in front of Dron.

"Of all the stupid problems to have, this is the stupidest!" Dron continued to yell.

For some reason, Dron could feel himself getting angrier and angrier at Gerax. It wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t something that Gerax could have stopped, but Dron had all this excess anger inside of him. Gerax was just the outlet.

"I would apologize, but there’s nothing for me to apologize for. None of us have ever traveled with a fleet of this size. Not everyone has communication devices."

Dron pointed over his shoulder. "Rynax has one, and right now, instead of talking to me as he should be able to, I have to rely on hand signals." Dron screamed so loud at Gerax that the group he’d been sitting with earlier began to gather up around. It wasn’t until Dron looked up and saw Tempest’s face and the shock clearly written on it.

Dron looked down at the beta male, Gerax. There was clearly no fight in the man. He was frustrated, but there was nothing that he could do about it.

Dron was losing it, and this time he couldn’t blame it on the fated mate sickness. The second he was back in the same vicinity as Tempest, it had all but vanished.

He was acting out like this because he was just being a horrible man and because of what Mikael had told him earlier.

Dron closed his eyes and willed himself to calm some. When he opened them again, everyone was still staring at him, waiting for an order. Waiting for direction. Dron didn’t want to have to do this, but there was no one else.

"Stop the ship and let the others catch up. Find out what’s going on. I need some time on my own."

"Yeah, I’d say you do," Gushex muttered from where he was standing.

Dron growled and looked up at the man. The man didn’t growl back, but he widened his stance as if he were waiting for Dron to attack him.

Dron shook his head and simply walked down to the lower level of the ship.

The pressure was starting to be too much, and he knew before this was all over, it would only get worse.