Page 7 of Dragon King’s Bullied Mate

As if she could hear his frazzled mind, she paused and touched his shoulder. “Just in case you can hear me, I mixed a drop of your blood with water and then added two drops of blysembloom extract. Nothing should have happened, but in your case, it turned black.”

Her words were distant and he really wanted to sleep, but he tried to pay attention the best he could. He would have frowned if he could. He still had no idea what she was talking about.

“You were poisoned, Mikael, and I have no idea with what. It’s definitely nothing I’m familiar with, but I’m limited on what I can do.” She paused. “I need to call the castle, but what if someone tried to kill you? The snow is pretty deep out there from the blizzard, so I’m counting on that being my excuse for not reporting this immediately.” She let out a sigh. “I’m just hesitant to call anyone until I have a better idea of what happened in case this was an assassination attempt.”

Poison in his blood? No. That couldn’t be right. He fought again to sort his fractured memory. An ache in his skull flared white-hot, and his ability to remember shattered completely.

“No idea how it got into your system, but I’m going to figure it out.” Her thumb brushed across his knuckles. “You’re not allowed to die over some ridiculous poison; do you hear me?”

He poured everything he had left into trying to move the hand she held so he could squeeze it back, just to give her some sign, but his body remained stubbornly still.

Silence stretched until she spoke again. “I know you’re still in there, and I’ll find you.”

He gave up fighting the exhaustion that wanted to claim him. He was trapped in the dark with his memories slipping away, but he was still there.

And Lyra was waiting for him to find his way back.

Chapter 4

Lyra

Lyra had long since lost track of how many hours she had spent at Mikael’s side on the sofa in the sitting room because she couldn’t move him safely to put him on a bed. She found herself speaking to him as though he might answer at any moment. The quiet rise and fall of his chest was simply a pause between words as she felt his forehead for signs of a worsening fever.

“You’re stubborn,” she murmured and dipped a cloth into cool water before pressing it gently to his brow. Over the days, she had discovered a fondness for him that surprised her, and one that she really didn’t want to admit. Despite everything, he was a fighter, and she respected that. “I’ve done everything right, so if you’re just choosing not to wake up, I’m going to take that personally.”

The fireplace light flickered and cast uneven shadows across his face. For a moment, she thought she saw something shift beneath his skin on his neck and across his shoulder.

Lyra froze.

At first, she told herself it was the light playing tricks and exhaustion had begun to blur the edges of reality. She yanked her hand back, but she had already felt it. Heat. But it wasn’t the shallow warmth of a fever or the damp, clammy heat of illness. It was something deeper, something steady and intense, like smouldering coals under his skin.

Her brows drew together as she pressed her palm lightly to his shoulder. “That’s… not right.”

He wasn’t burning with fever. She had checked, over and over again, because she had sensed heat but couldn’t track it. This heat was different. It pulsed like it was alive, as though something beneath his skin was generating it rather than succumbing to it.

Lyra hesitated and checked to be sure Beckett wasn’t in the room before she slowly lowered the blanket to reveal his naked torso. She knew she should have dressed him, or at least attempted to, but she hadn’t wanted to move him too much and risk further injury.

And that was when she saw it. Not clearly enough to fully grasp, but she saw an unmistakable shimmer, like a ripple beneath the surface of his skin. Overlapping scales caught the light before vanishing just as quickly.

There was beauty in it. He already had a beautiful chest, but the scales were magnificent. Without thinking, she trailed a finger down his chest.

She sucked in a sharp breath and leaned closer. Her heart thudded and her mind scrambled to explain what her eyes insisted she had seen.

“No,” she whispered, even though there was no one to hear her denial but him. “That’s not possible.”

Except… she had heard the stories. Everyone had.

Tales passed down in hushed tones and half-believed whispers of creatures who were not entirely human, who could shift and heal and burn with something ancient and powerful beneath their skin. Dragons, they were called in those stories, though Lyra had always filed such things away with myths meant to entertain rather than truths meant to be lived.

Yet now, standing here with her hand still hovering over skin that radiated unnatural heat, she found herself remembering every detail she had once dismissed.

Dragon shifters had the ability to heal themselves.

The thought settled heavily in her mind as she glanced at the various bandages that covered cuts and scrapes. The cut on his head had healed more than expected over the last couple of days, but not nearly as much as it should have been if the stories were entirely true. But the way it was unmistakably improved defied everything she knew about the human body.

“You’re not making any sense,” she said softly, though there was no frustration in her voice. If anything, she had a growing fascination as her fingers trailed his skin above the gash on his forehead. “People don’t heal like this… unless…”

She didn’t finish the thought.