Page 44 of Dragon King’s Bullied Mate

By the time Mikael turned back around, the stranger had already disappeared into the alleyway between the buildings.

“Damn it,” Mikael growled.

Malaya frowned and glanced down the empty street. “Who was that?”

“I don’t know yet.” Which bothered him immensely.

Malaya slipped her phone back into her pocket. “One of the guards remembered roughly where Lyra’s cottage is located. Apparently it’s pretty remote but I know which way we need to go.”

Mikael’s attention lingered another moment on the place where the stranger had vanished before he finally nodded once.

“Then we go now.”

Because every instinct he possessed was screaming that time was running out.

Chapter 18

Lyra

The television played softly in the background, its flickering light casting shadows across the small living room while snow drifted steadily beyond the frosted windows. For the first time in what felt like endless days, Lyra realized her pulse was no longer racing hard enough to hurt.

The quiet almost felt unnatural.

Beckett slept curled against her side beneath the old knitted blanket she had dragged over both of them earlier. One small hand fisted tightly in the fabric near her waist as though even asleep he feared waking to discover she had disappeared.

His breathing had finally evened out sometime during the last hour, and now the only sounds in the cottage were the muted voices from the television, the crackling fire, and the occasional groan of winter wind against the roof.

Peace, at least a little bit of it. Enough that exhaustion had begun settling heavily into her bones now that survival no longer demanded every ounce of her focus.

Lyra stared blankly at the television without truly seeing it while her thoughts circled the same impossible question over and over again.

What now?

For years her life had revolved around simple purposes that included surviving quietly and avoiding attention. Do good deeds without sticking around afterwards.

Now everything had shattered apart so completely that she no longer knew what direction remained. Between Beckett’s father searching for him and Dag crawling straight out of her nightmares, it was like the last many years of her life had just disappeared.

And Mikael complicated everything.

She glanced toward the small bottle resting on the coffee table beside the untouched mug of tea she had forgotten to drink hours ago.

Blysemberry root.

The ugly little glass container suddenly seemed to dominate the entire room. Lyra reached for it slowly and turned it between her fingers while unease curled through her chest yet again. No matter how many times she tried to piece together the events in her head, nothing made sense.

There were so many questions that she might never have answers to. How had he ended up in the snow? How had he been poisoned? More importantly, who had poisoned him?

None of it fit together properly.

If he had truly fallen from the upper mountain trails, then why had no one searched near the cliffs immediately? Why had Dag seemed more focused on accusing her than actually finding the king alive, but then had acted like he’d known Mikael had been there the whole time?

The thoughts twisted uneasily through her mind. What should—

BANG.

The pounding against the front door nearly stopped her heart. Lyra jerked so hard she almost dropped the bottle while Beckett shot upright beside her with a terrified scream.

“He found us!”