The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 227

She held her breath, watching. A minute later, it ticked down again.

Her heart, which had felt like a small, cold stone in her chest for days, gave a single, hard thump. She stood up so fast that her chair rolled back and hit the wall with a thud.

Clara, who was dozing in the corner with her head against a stack of pillows, jolted awake. “Wha-? Is he

–?”

“His creatinine,” Elera whispered, pointing at the screen. “It’s dropping.”

Clara scrambled up, peering at the monitor. “Is that… is that good? That sounds bad. Creatinine sounds like a villain from a sci–fi movie.”

“It’s very good,” Elera said, a wild, fragile hope bubbling up in her throat. “It means his kidneys are starting to work again. They’re filtering.”

She called for Dr. Evans and Dr. Vogel. They came, studied the data, exchanged looks that were carefully neutral but held a glimmer of something that wasn’t doom.

“It is a positive sign,” Dr. Vogel allowed. “But it is only one sign. We must see sustained improvement. And we must see a neurological response.”

The next sign came that afternoon. Elera was carefully wiping his face with a cool cloth when his brow furrowed. Just a tiny crease between his eyebrows, a faint twitch of a muscle. It was gone as quickly as it came. She froze, the cloth hovering in mid–air. Had she imagined it?

She hadn’t.

An hour later, his fingers, which had been completely slack in hers for days, curled. Just the slightest, weakest pressure. As if he was trying to hold on.

Elera’s breath caught. She leaned close. “Drakonius? Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear

me.”

Nothing for a long moment. Then, that faint, barely–there pressure again. Once. Twice.

A sob escaped her but it was a sob of joy, sharp and sudden. “He can hear me! Clara, he squeezed my hand!”

Clara rushed over, her face lit up. “Okay, okay, talk to him! Say something juicy! Tell him his sister called him a cockroach!”

Elera laughed through her tears, a wet, hiccupping sound. She put her lips close to his car. “Your sister called you a cockroach. She said you’re hard to kill. I think she was paying you a compliment. In a very Lyra way.”

His brow furrowed again, deeper this time.

Dr. Vogel was summoned again. She did a series of simple neurological tests, shining a light in his eyes, pressing on his nail beds. “The pupillary response is stronger. Withdrawal to pain is clear. These are

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Chapter 22 Back From The Dark

excellent signs. The sedation is wearing off. His body is beginning to wake up.”

“When?” Elera asked, the word bursting out of her. “When will he wake up?”

“The brain works on its own schedule,” Dr. Vogel said, not unkindly. “It could be hours. It could be another day or days. But the path is now pointing upward.”

The vigil changed. It was no longer a deathwatch. It was a birthwatch. A waiting for a new dawn. The mood in the room lightened by a fraction of a millionth of a degree. Frost allowed himself to be relieved of his post for a full hour to go get what he called “real food,” which turned out to be three greasy cheeseburgers and a mountain of fries. The smell filled the room, absurd and wonderful.

“You should eat one,” Clara said, nudging the bag toward Elera. “It has all the major food groups: grease,” salt, etc.”

Elera actually ate a few fries. They were delicious.

The evening deepened. The lights in the room were turned low. Clara had gone to the family lounge to try to sleep in a horizontal position for the first time in days. Frost was back at his post. Elera sat in her usual chair, but she was vibrating with a new, anxious energy. Every twitch, every sigh from the bed, every change in the rhythm of his breathing had her leaning forward, hoping.

She was telling him about the mountain house, the one they hadn’t seen yet. “Frost says it’s ready. There’s a huge window that looks out over a valley. Apparently, there are elk and a hot tub. I’ve never been in a hot tub. It seems like a place where people make bad decisions. We should make some. Not very bad ones. Just… quiet ones.”

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