Page 31 of Dragon King’s Bullied Mate

“You are not joining the search?” Mikael asked.

Dag glanced over one shoulder. “The guards can handle one frightened child.”

“He disappeared because your men arrested his guardian in the middle of a crowded market,” Mikael replied, his voice low but edged with warning. “He is alone somewhere in the snow.”

“And Lyra remains the prime suspect in your poisoning.” Dag took a slow swallow from his glass before adding flatly, “Forgive me if I’m not eager to waste the entire guard searching for her runaway brat.”

The words struck Mikael wrong instantly. His irritation surged hard enough that his dragon stirred beneath his skin.

“He is a child.”

“He is a liability,” Dag corrected carelessly. “If she poisoned you, he is useless to us.”

Across the room Lyra stiffened visibly. Mikael felt her fury mixed with fear and something dangerous tightened sharply inside his chest at the sight of it.

Dag noticed nothing, or just didn’t care.

“Though honestly,” Dag added with a humorless laugh, “the entire accusation that she was capable of such a crime suddenly sounds absurd to me.”

Martin looked up from the notes he had been writing. “You were the one insisting she be arrested.”

“I made the accusation,” Dag replied. “But now, I question it. Low-Life Lyra was never smart enough to poison anyone.”

Heat exploded violently through Mikael’s chest. His dragon surged awake with such savage force that Mikael physically flinched beneath it and nearly lost hold of himself entirely.

Threat.

The reaction stunned him. Never in all the years he had known Dag had his dragon reacted this way toward him. Mikael stared at him in silence while his pulse hammered painfully against his ribs. His dragon snarled beneath his skin with unmistakable hostility.

Protect.

The possessiveness wrapped itself fiercely around Lyra, who remained rigid beneath the insult even as she refused to lower her gaze.

Unease crawled colder down Mikael’s spine. Why now? And if Lyra hadn’t poisoned him, which he had absolutely no suspicion that she had, then who had?

Dag noticed this time. “Mikael?”

Mikael’s eyes narrowed slowly. “You just said she was not smart enough to poison anyone.”

Dag’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. “I said—”

“I heard what you said.” Mikael rose slowly from his chair despite the weakness still lingering in his body. “So answer me this, Dag. If Lyra didn’t poison me… then who did?”

Silence stretched.

For the first time since waking up, Mikael watched genuine tension flicker across Dag’s face.

“It could still have been her,” Dag answered carefully. “Perhaps she had help.”

“But moments ago you sounded certain she was incapable of it.”

Dag’s jaw tightened. “You are twisting my words.”

“No,” Mikael replied quietly, “I am listening to them.”

Martin glanced uneasily between the two men while Lyra remained perfectly still while she watched the exchange with wary attention.

Mikael’s dragon had not calmed. If anything, the instinctive hostility toward Dag only continued growing stronger every second the man stood before him.