The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 48

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Chapter 48 Burned Dreams

On the fifth day after the cytokine storm, Drakonius was able to walk the length of the main hallway without his cane, though he leaned heavily on Elera’s arm. On the seventh day, his appetite returned, and he ate an entire bowl of broth with actual enthusiasm.

Progress was not a straight line. There were afternoons where the fatigue was so profound he could barely lift his head from the pillow, and Elera would sit and read to him from her dry medical journals, her voice was very calm and steady stream in the dim room. There were nights where the nerve pain returned, sharp and electric, and she would silently administer the precise dose of painkiller, her hand resting on his damp forehead until the lines of agony smoothed from his face.

One such afternoon, he was in his favorite chair by the fire, a blanket over his legs, attempting to read a novel. Elera was at the large desk, her own tablet open, but she was not looking at it. She was watching him. The color was slowly, tentatively, returning to his face. The gray shadows under his eyes were less like bruises and more like simple tiredness. He was still far too thin, and the tremor in his hands came and went, but he was here. He was present.

He caught her looking and lowered his book. “You’re staring, Doctor. Do I have a new symptom?”

“A positive one,” she said, smiling slightly. “You look… less like a ghost today.”

He returned the smile, a real one that reached his eyes and made them crinkle at the corners. It was a sight that never failed to send a small, warm shock through her system. “High praise. I’ll take it.”

A comfortable silence fell between them. It was in these quiet moments that the sheer strangeness of their situation would hit her. She was married to this man. She shared his home. She knew the rhythm of his breath when he slept, the way he took his tea (black, no sugar), the specific sigh he made when a muscle in his back tightened. She knew him in ways no one else did, not even his estranged sister. And yet, in so many other ways, he was still a fortress, his inner walls high and his gates locked.

“Tell me something,” she said, the question coming out before she could second–guess it. “Something real about you, not about your illness or about business but something from before.”