Shocking news

Just as Xinglong was about to respond to Ren's statement, there was a knock on the door to his private meeting room. Since Xinglong had left strict instructions not to be disturbed, he realized that for his staff to disobey his orders and interrupt his meeting meant that something serious had come up.

"Ren, excuse the interruption, but I need to attend to this," Xinglong said apologetically, as he disabled the privacy wards set up.

Once the wards were down, he yelled: "Come."

The large door opened, and Xinglong trusted aide poked his head in.

"Sire, I am sorry for interrupting your meeting, but there is an envoy from the Radiant Realm who is seeking an urgent meeting with you, Elder Shanshe has offered to see them in your stead," his aide said in a rush.

Speak of the devil, Xinglong thought as he, his father and Ren exchanged startled looks.

"How interesting," Ren murmured.

"What impeccable timing," Laolong said with a fierce grin.

"Hmm, couldn't agree more," Xinglong responded.

The aide scratched his nose with talon while staring wide-eyed at the three males. Their reactions were the last thing he expected. He wouldn't have interrupted this meeting if Elder Shanshe hadn't tried to volunteer himself to meet with the humans.

Laolong stood up, "You two carry on with your discussion, I will meet with this human envoy," and with that statement, Laolong turned and left the meeting room, with Xinglong's aide staring at his back bemused.

Why do I feel like His Majesty is looking forward to this meeting, the aide thought to himself. Everyone knows that King Laolong hated meetings of any kind and he especially loathed humans. He should be bellowing for the stinking humans to get out his realm, not rushing forward to meet them.

Oh, gods, he's not going to eat him, the aide thought in horror, before he rushed after King Laolong.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty," the aide wailed as he tried to catch up to the swift-footed king.

***

Once the aide left, Ren got up and closed the door which the aide had left open. Once the door was shut, Xinglong reactivated the privacy ward, except this time instead of the normal ward he usually used, he opened up a small box on his desk that contained one the dragons most precious treasures.

Ren's eyebrows raised as he saw Xinglong removing the ruby colored gem from the wooden box. Xinglong injected his magic into the gem and chanted a spell. A red glow emanated from the gem, as Xinglong continued to chant, the light increased in size until a bubble half the size of the room had taken shape.

The bubbled encased both Xinglong and Ren, give their features a reddish glow. Once Xinglong had finished chanting, he placed the ruby gem in-between himself and Ren.

"And this, why have you activated the Dragon Concealer?" Ren asked pointing to the ruby gem on the desk. The ruby gem was known as the Dragon Concealer, it was an ancient artifact from before the sundering.

It was rumored that once activated no matter how powerful a mage was, the ward couldn't be broken. It had only ever been used by the King of the Dragon Realm under the direst of circumstances, and only when the matter under discussion would affect the safety of the dragon race.

Xinglong gave his oldest friend a grim look. "Now that my father's left, I need to talk to you about something that occurred recently, I was going to visit you, but thankfully you came to see me instead. I really need your help."

Ren could count on his one hand the number of times Xinglong had asked for his help, knowing his brother he knew that Xinglong would rather chew off his right paw, before asking for assistance, so whatever it was, Ren knew it had to be damn serious.

His purple eyes grave, Ren gazed at Xinglong, his face just as grave.

"You need only ask, if it is within my power I will do whatever I can to assist you."

"Thank you brother," Xinglong said.

Xinglong then went on to tell Ren all out the intense power that had felt a while back as well as how it had activated his dormant silver dragon powers, which could only mean that a silver queen had suddenly appeared on Doha.

As Xinglong narrated his story, Ren couldn't help feeling some excitement. What a coincidence, he thought. Here he was looking for his true-mate, after coming to the realization that his true-mate wasn't a demon. And he had decided to visit the Dragon Realm, hoping that he would find her here. Demons and Dragons had also been similar in temperament, and he had hoped that his true-mate would be a dragon.

But as Xinglong describe how his silver dragon powers were awakened by the power he felt, and that it could only be a silver queen, Ren's stomach clenched as ice filled his veins. The gods wouldn't be that cruel, he thought in dismay. If his true-mate ended up being the new silver queen, forget about the Zartonesh invasion, the dragons and demons would destroy themselves going to war over this queen long before they arrived.

What could have happened for the silver queen to have woven such a powerful spell that it reverberated through Doha? Could that be the reason his true-mate soul had been so badly hurt that his beast had needed to leave and expend so much of his powers just to save her?

These questions ran through Ren's mind, as he tried to figure out how he was going to deal with the ramifications if this silver queen turned out to be his true-mate.

"When did this occur?" Ren asked, his voice was calm not betraying his inner turmoil.

"Just over two weeks ago."

Over two weeks ago, then it can't be her, Ren thought. His true-mate soul had been severally injured the other day. As Ren was about to let out a sigh of relief, he remembered it was just over two weeks ago, he had awoken in agonizing pain, it was as though his mind as being ripped apart, and then there as that strange occurrence with that dream he had about his mother and father.

Ren could feel the blood draining from his hands, as his fingers became ice cold. His stomach rolled as his heart dropped.

"Have you felt anything since?" he asked faintly.

Xinglong was so caught up in his own recollections that he didn't notice Ren's strange reaction.

"No, nothing since."

Ren felt genuinely torn, he didn't know if he should bring up his suspicions that the silver queen that the dragons so desperately needed to save their race, could be his true-mate. Just the thought that these dragons would expect his true-mate to mate with multiple partners had liquid fury filling his veins, a small growl escaped from his tightly clenched lips.

Ren tried to contact his beast in his mind to see if he could confirm if their true-mate was a dragon, but no matter how much he called, his beast didn't answer. Ever since that ordeal, his beast had been asleep, which up until a few minutes ago Ren had relished, as for the first time thousands of years he had felt at peace in his own skin, now all he wanted was for his beast to awaken so that he could talk to him.

Taking a deep breath, Ren tried to calm himself down, he couldn't betray his emotions to Xinglong, not now. Ren didn't know how Xinglong would react if he knew that his new silver queen was most likely Ren's true-mate. Xinglong knew just how possessive demons were when it came to their mates, he would realize instantly that there was no way in hell that Ren was going to share her, and with Xinglong sensitivity to her magic, Ren needed Xinglong cooperation in finding her.

After he was sure that his voice would betray him, Ren asked: "So what do you need my help with?"

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Note:

Hey readers, just a quick note. For the past two days, I have been editing chapters, you will see that I have added an (edited) tag to the chapters that I have gone through. To those of you who started this journey right at the beginning, you might want to go back and have a look at those edited chapters, as I have made some changes.

The gist of the story stays the same, but I have added extra details and filled in a couple of holes that I picked up.

I will be concentrating on editing the rest of the chapters for this week, so there will only be one release per day.

I am also working on my website, http://www.djrogue.co.za which should be up "hopefully" in the next week or so, I have a couple of surprises in store you all, don't bother checking the site out yet, I just bought the domain today, and I want to concentrate on getting all my chapters edited, and get back on track doing what I love, writing!

I will inform you all once the site is up and running. As to the load shedding, "Yippee!!!" we had none today, the local news had informed us that while we aren't out of danger yet, things are looking up.

Anyway thanks for you patience for the last couple of days.

Cheers

DJ Rogue.

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📌 Quote of the day

"While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior." —Henry Link

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