Page 29 of Dragon King’s Bullied Mate

For several seconds silence settled heavily through the corridor before Mikael finally spoke, his voice roughened by weakness but carrying enough authority to stop every argument instantly.

“Bring her to my chambers.”

Dag frowned. “Mikael…”

“That was not a suggestion.”

The guard’s jaw tightened visibly, though after a long moment he stepped back with clear reluctance while two guards moved forward to unlock the cell.

Lyra’s heart pounded painfully as she stepped into the corridor. She instinctively reached for Beckett before the terrible emptiness hit her all over again.

He was still missing.

She wanted to beg Mikael to help her find him, but she knew she needed to wait until Dag wasn’t around. There was something in the man that she didn’t trust at all and while he hadn’t arrested her himself, she instinctively knew that he was behind her current predicament.

The realization hollowed her from the inside out as the guards escorted her behind Mikael and Martin. By the time they reached the chambers, fear had wrapped itself so tightly around her ribs she could barely breathe properly.

The room itself felt overwhelmingly warm after the dungeon. Snow drifted softly beyond the tall windows, but nothing mattered because the moment the doors shut behind them, every pair of eyes in the room settled onto her again.

Mikael lowered himself carefully into a chair while Martin immediately resumed fussing over him with obvious irritation.

“You should still be in bed.”

“I’m sitting,” Mikael replied dryly. “I’m fine.”

“Barely.”

Mikael turned his attention to Lyra and the weight of that stare unsettled her far more than Dag’s hostility ever could because there was still something searching in his expression.

“I know you, and yet…” he said slowly. “Tell me your name.”

Lyra hesitated only briefly. “My name is Lyra.”

The instant the words left her mouth, Dag barked out a sharp evil laugh from near the door.

“Well,” he muttered, “that explains everything.”

Mikael frowned. “You know her?”

“Oh, we all knew Lyra.” Dag pointed at her. “You lied to me. I knew I recognized you but you denied it.”

The old humiliation hit hard enough to make her stomach twist because Dag’s tone had not changed at all since their school years. It still carried that same cruelty hidden beneath false amusement, the same deliberate sharpness meant to reduce her to something small and laughable in front of everyone else.

“Quiet little Lyra from the slum district,” Dag continued as he leaned against the wall. “Always trailing around with second-hand books and dirty clothes because her family couldn’t afford anything.”

Martin shot him an unimpressed glance. “Are you still twelve?”

Dag ignored him. “She used to cry if someone looked at her too harshly.”

Lyra felt the words strike old bruises buried deep beneath years of survival and hard-earned control, but unlike the girl Dag remembered, she no longer folded beneath mockery just because someone expected her to.

“You must be proud to be a walking example of how some people never grow up,” she replied evenly.

Dag’s expression darkened instantly. “Careful.”

“No, you don’t get to use that word with me anymore.” Lyra lifted her chin despite the fear that clawed through her chest, or maybe it was pent-up fury. “I spent enough years being careful around you.”

Something flickered across Mikael’s face then. It wasn’t a full memory, but something more like recognition. She saw it in the way his jaw tightened, as though fragments of old scenes had begun surfacing through the poison’s lingering haze. Dread curled through her because Mikael had stood beside Dag during those years more often than not.