Page 3 of Dragon King’s Bullied Mate

Beckett paused and his dark eyes flicked up to hers with that searching look he always wore. Sometimes she felt as though every instruction needed to be measured against the fragile trust he had built solely around her.

At her words, he withdrew his hand immediately and pressed closer instead. His shoulder bumped into her leg.

“Okay,” he said softly, the word careful and obedient.

Lyra’s chest tightened in that familiar way it always did when he listened so completely. Children were not meant to be so cautious, yet Beckett had arrived to her with that wariness already carved deep into him. He was a quiet boy for being so young. He spoke little and held on tightly in a world that had already proven itself unreliable to him.

“You can carry these,” she added after a moment when she found a cluster of frost-tipped blooms and placed them gently into his hands instead of the basket. She prayed he was careful with the stubborn things that thrived where nothing else dared. “We can sell those at the market.”

Something brighter flickered across his face. It wasn’t quite a smile but close enough that she felt it like sunlight. He nodded and cradled the flowers with exaggerated care as though he were protecting them with his life.

They moved slowly across the edge of the treeline at the base of the mountain where the wind was less cruel and the blooms were more plentiful. As they gathered what little winter offered, Lyra let herself settle into the rhythm of it. Arranging bouquets and selling them at the local farmer’s market created the simple, honest life she had built here far from everything she had once known.

She first felt that something was off in her bones. It was more than the impending blizzard. This was something totally different.

It was subtle, like a faint tremor carried through the ground beneath her boots. It was so slight it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else, but Lyra stilled instantly. Her hand tightened reflexively around the basket handle as her gaze swept across the landscape.

Beckett noticed the change in her before he noticed anything else. He always did.

His fingers returned to her cloak and the flowers were nearly crushed between his hands as he pressed into her side. “Lyra?”

She forced her expression to soften but her pulse had already begun to climb. “It’s nothing,” she said, too quickly to be entirely convincing. It was something, but she had no idea what. “Stay close to me.”

The mountains loomed sharp and white against the pale sky, the peaks shrouded in mist. For a long moment, nothing seemed out of place and Lyra wondered if she had imagined the feeling.

Then she heard the sound. Low and muffled.

Lyra didn’t wait for anything more.

“Come,” she said, already turning. Her free hand grabbed Beckett’s shoulder and turned him back toward the cottage with a quiet urgency she couldn’t quite explain. Her chest tightened in response to that sound, and all she wanted to do was get the little boy to safety.

They had nearly reached the edge of her property when she saw it.

At first, it was nothing more than a break in the smooth expanse of snow further down the slope. A small avalanche had fallen on the far side of a buttress that blocked it from the tree line. An uneven drift had piled too high, and she might have ignored it entirely if not for the faint glimpse of a boot that barely stuck out of the top of the swell.

Lyra slowed and Beckett bumped into her from behind. She moved a bit closer and realized the sound she heard came from that boot, or whatever was connected to it. Whoever it was, they were still alive.

“Stay here,” she said in a voice she had never used on Beckett before.

He refused to let go. “Lyra, no.”

“Stay,” she repeated more firmly. This time he froze and his fingers loosened just enough for her to step forward alone.

Each step felt heavier than the last as she approached the snowdrift. Her boots sank into the snow and as she drew close, the boot twitched. She dropped to her knees and started to dig.

Questions swirled through her head as she scooped snow away from his body. Had he fallen off the mountain or had he been prowling around and gotten caught by the avalanche?

His clothes came into view as she frantically tried to free him. Her hands stopped as she revealed the crest on his overcoat. Her breath froze in her lungs.

No. Her first instinct was sharp and immediate. It can’t be.

She felt the unmistakable presence of someone who did not belong here. The king, her king, did not belong in her quiet stretch of land and definitely not in the fragile peace she had carved out piece by careful piece.

Especially when he had caused the need for it.

Her stomach turned. Mikael. A name she had never wanted to speak again. A man who had once owned her heart at the same time she hated him.

Even half-buried and broken, he carried that same undeniable presence that had once silenced entire rooms. For a moment, Lyra simply knelt there and stared down at him as the past rose up full of horrible memories before she swiped more snow away.