Page 14 of Dragon King’s Bullied Mate

Lyra’s chest tightened. “No,” she said gently. “You just heard the news.”

Beckett dropped his gaze to his hands. “Do I have to go back?”

The question was so quiet she nearly missed it. “Go back?”

He swallowed hard. “To my father.”

Something inside her went cold and furious all at once.

She turned to him and saw it happen in real time. The retreat she had worked months to undo with his shoulders folding inward, his chin lowering, and his fingers picking anxiously at the cuff of his sleeve. His voice was tiny as if trying to take up less space in the world.

“No,” she said at once. “Look at me, Beckett.”

He tried and failed. She lifted his chin gently with her fingers.

“You do not have to go anywhere today,” she said, each word steady and deliberate. “And whatever happens next, I will do everything I can to protect you.”

His mouth trembled. “But what if he comes?”

“Then he comes to me first.”

“What if they make you?”

“Then they will have to work very hard.”

A watery little laugh escaped him at that, more reflex than amusement, but it was enough.

Lyra pulled him into her lap and held him there while the fire settled lower. Her hand smoothed his hair again and again until his breathing evened and the rigid fear in his spine began to soften.

She told him stories while she held him. Nothing grand, only small true things like that spring always returned no matter how brutal winter felt. That being brave did not mean never being scared. And that some people were cruel because cruelty was all they knew, and that did not make them powerful.

Eventually Beckett lifted his head and pointed at Mikael. “Can the king help keep him away?”

Lyra blinked. “The what?”

He pointed more emphatically at Mikael’s sleeping form. “The king.”

She stared at him. “How do you know that is the king?”

Beckett gave her a look of profound four-year-old disbelief. “From the television, silly.”

Despite herself, Lyra laughed, a genuine sound that felt rusty from disuse. “Right, of course.”

Beckett leaned against her again, eyes still on Mikael. “Can he help?”

Lyra followed his gaze. Mikael’s brow furrowed faintly in his sleep as though troubled by dreams too heavy to shake.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But whether he can or not, we are not telling anyone he is here. Do you understand me?”

Beckett’s eyes widened slightly. “Because of my father?”

“Because of many things,” she said, choosing care over detail. “But yes, that would be among them.”

“If I promise, he won’t find me?”

The question broke her heart by how practical it was.

“It will help,” she said honestly.