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.
Instead, she sat back slightly and studied him in silence. Any fear she should have felt totally gave way to something far more dangerous. Her sense of curiosity.
“You could have told me, you know,” Lyra went on after a moment, her lips smirking faintly despite the weight of the realization pressing against her. “Though I suppose being unconscious makes that difficult.”
Her gaze drifted again to his upper torso, half-expecting the scales to appear once more, but his skin remained smooth and betrayed nothing.
“If the stories are true,” she continued, quieter now and more thoughtful, “then you should already be healed.”
Not to mention the fascinating fact that the king of Iskavard was half dragon. That was a fact she had never heard before.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked back at the partially closed wounds. “Which means something is stopping it.”
The answer came to her almost immediately. “The poison.”
Lyra exhaled slowly, the pieces falling into place with unsettling clarity.
She had tested him a few times but the persistent toxin still lingered in his system despite her efforts to draw it out with salves and elixirs that she knew of.
She had attributed it to something external, but with this new understanding, the role of the poison felt far more significant.
“It’s interfering,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Slowing whatever… you are.” Her gaze softened as it returned to his face. “You’re fighting it, though. I can see that.”
For a moment, she simply watched him. She pulled the blanket back up and tucked it under his chin and around his shoulders. The quiet of the room wrapped around her thoughts as they shifted, no longer constrained by what she had once believed possible.
“You’re full of surprises,” she murmured.
A floorboard creaked behind her, and Lyra turned just as Beckett stepped into the doorway with his serious little face directed at Mikael.
“You’re still in here,” he said, though it wasn’t quite a question.
“Where else would I be?”
Beckett stepped closer, but he was hesitant. “He looks… different.”
Lyra tilted her head slightly. “Different how?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Like he’s not as close to dying.”
Lyra glanced back at Mikael. “He’s a fighter and that’s helping him heal.”
“Can I sit in here with you?”
She motioned to a chair. “You can keep me company.”
“Can you tell me a story?”
Her heart warmed. She had won the little boy over with stories when he first came to live with her. “How about one about dragons?”
Beckett’s expression shifted, interest cutting through his wariness. “You know stories about dragons?”
She nodded. “The kind most people don’t believe, but sometimes are the ones worth paying attention to.”
He crossed his arms, clearly intrigued. “I’m ready.”
She moved away from Mikael and cuddled next to Beckett. “Okay then. Here we go.”
Once upon a time, in a village tucked between a forest and a line of soft blue mountains, there lived a little boy named Ollie who was very good at climbing trees and very bad at finishing his vegetables. He was also very afraid of dragons.
Everyone in town told him that dragons breathed fire and ate people, so Ollie stayed far away from the mountains, because that was where dragons lived.
But one afternoon, while chasing a runaway kite, Ollie found himself farther than he had ever gone before. The trees thinned, the ground turned rocky, and when he finally caught the kite, a dragon was curled up right beside a boulder.
This dragon was smaller but still big enough to make Ollie’s heart jump into his throat. The dragon jumped when Ollie scared it, but one of its wings was lopsided. And instead of roaring, the dragon sneezed.
A tiny puff of smoke drifted into the air. Ollie did what any brave, terrified boy would do. He screamed and ran.
Straight into a knight.
Clang. Ollie bounced backward and landed on the grass.
“Easy there,” the knight said in a calm voice.
“There’s a dragon!” Ollie pointed wildly behind him.
“I know,” said the knight.
“You know?!” Ollie squeaked.
“I’ve been looking for him.”
Ollie blinked. “You’re not… scared?”
The knight tilted his head. “Should I be?”
“Yes! He’s a dragon!”
The knight crouched so they were eye level. “Or,” he said gently, “he’s something you don’t understand yet.”
Before Ollie could argue, a cautious voice called from behind the rocks.
“Hello?” The dragon peeked out, like he was a very nervous pile of scales.
The knight stood and gave a small wave. “There you are.”
Ollie grabbed the knight’s leg. “Don’t wave at it!”
But the knight didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t shout. He simply walked toward the dragon.
“Watch.”
The dragon shuffled back a little. “I didn’t mean to scare him. I just… sneezed.”
Ollie peeked out from behind the knight. “He… talks.”
“Most friends do,” the knight said.
“Friend?!” Ollie squeaked again.
The knight glanced down at him. “Tell me, Ollie. Have you seen him burn a village?”
“No.”
“Chase anyone?”
“No.”
“Eat anyone?”
Ollie hesitated. “No.”
The dragon looked offended. “Never.”
The knight smiled slightly. “Then perhaps what you’re afraid of isn’t him, but the stories you were told.”
Ollie frowned, thinking about that.
The dragon shifted his weight, then carefully reached out one claw and nudged Ollie’s fallen kite closer. “I think this is yours.”
Ollie stared at it. “You’re not going to… eat me?”
The dragon blinked. “I was actually going to ask if you wanted help fixing your kite.”
Ollie reached out and took the kite. “Can you… really breathe fire?”
The dragon perked up. “A little! But I’m still learning control.”
“Can you show me?”
The knight chuckled softly. “One step at a time.”
The knight didn’t teach Ollie how to fight that day. He taught him how to look again instead of judging first. And sometimes, that’s the braver thing to learn.
Beckett clapped when the story finished. Lyra smiled and rumpled his hair. Until she knew more about dragon shifters, if in fact that’s what her patient was, she didn’t want to instill fear in her young charge.
Because as much as Mikael intrigued her and she found herself drawn to the mystery of him, she wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the risks, especially not where Beckett was concerned.
Whatever she had felt for the man in the past needed to stay there.
It had been many years since she had even seen him, and that was fine.
That night, after the young boy had gone to bed, Lyra moved quietly through the cottage. When she returned to Mikael’s side and watched the faint tension begin to stir in his limbs. She cupped his face.
“You’re going to wake up soon,” she said softly. Her hand brushed lightly against his head. “And it’s a good thing because the storm is over and I’m running out of time to keep you here.”
“And when you do wake,” she added, “I’d very much like to have enough time with you to get some answers before you leave.”
The heat beneath his skin pulsed faintly in response, and Lyra didn’t pull away.