Page 83 of A Match Made in Error

“Noah is a warlock. He’s fine.” Riven’s hand waves dismissively in the air.

“He is a history professor, not a soldier.” I can see him now, throwing books at the pirates and using his body as a shield to protect Aoife.

“Well, she is fae like me. That helps.” He’s stacking wood in his arms now, getting ready to prepare a fire by means other than friction as he had suggested earlier.

“She is a light fae, not a shadow fae.” What is he not understanding? “Riven, listen to me!” My voice pitches loudly, blowing his eyes wide with shock.

He drops the wood without pretense, rolling his arms down and then stepping over the logs to get to me. His hands cup my face, like he’s about to kiss me, but instead, he says, “Poppy, I told you, if it’s between you and everyone else, I’d pick you every time.”

My breath catches in my chest, eyes passing between his and the smoldering earnestness in them. He means it.

“But we have to help them,” I whisper.

“Use your magic to send a message to the Moirai.” For a moment, I only stare at him, my mind still ringing from the chaos of steel and shouting and blood. Fate. Of course. I must still be in shock to not have thought of using my magic to help. What was I going to do? Fight them with my bare hands? “And we will stay here until morning,” he adds more quietly, glancing at the jagged stone walls surrounding the spring. Steam curls up into the darkening sky, the water glowing faintly with torchlight. “The Moirai sealed it. Means we’re the only two people on this island who can get in.”

Only two.

The words land somewhere low in my stomach.

“Fine,” I mutter, pulling out of his hold before my body memorizes how good it felt there. I kneel near the edge of the spring and draw a breath, letting the familiar thrum of magic gather beneath my skin. “Get back to making a fire. It gets cold out here at night.”

A pause.

Then Riven laughs softly behind me. “Are you seriously giving me orders?” I glance over my shoulder just in time to see that swaggering smirk spreading across his mouth. “Hot.”

My kneecaps threaten to dissolve.

I turn away immediately before he can see the effect he has on me. If I look at him too long—if I let myself remember last night, the way the silence fell after I told him I wanted him—I’ll lose every ounce of composure I have left.

So I focus on the magic. The incantation leaves my lips in a quiet whisper, the air around my fingers shimmering as the message slips free and vanishes into the night, bound for the Moirai.

Done.

Too soon.

Now there is nothing left to do but exist here with him.

I rise slowly and begin pacing the smooth stones bordering the spring, my mind a tangled storm. Riven’s voice from last night echoes through my head. Raw and unguarded in a way I’ve almost never heard.

The memory twists somewhere painful inside my chest.

Then there was the attack.

The way he moved. The way he put himself between me and every blade without hesitation, shadows snapping through the air like living weapons. The way his hand kept finding mine in the chaos as if he needed to know I was still there.

But worst of all⁠—

The way I told him I wanted him.

Fate.

Heat crawls up my neck just thinking about it. And now, we’re alone in this quiet, sacred place, and that want is impossible to ignore.

Behind me, fabric tears.

I turn before I can stop myself. Riven is standing beside the half-built fire, ripping the ruined remains of his shirt over his head. The cloth falls away in one careless motion as he wipes sweat from his brow with his forearm.

My mouth goes dry.