Page 85 of A Match Made in Error

And she cares about me.

She looks at me like I’m not broken or too dark or too much.

I’m done.

Fate help me—help her—because I’m hers now.

Maybe I always have been.

“Let’s get all the way in. The water has healing properties and relaxing properties, and I, for one, could use the latter.” I follow her order blindly, my mouth dry and my own hands shaking now that I’ve come to this irrevocable conclusion. We shrug off a few tattered layers until only our undergarments remain and enter.

Steam wraps around my ankles as I step into the spring, the water warmer than the night air by a startling degree. It slips over my skin like silk, heat soaking into muscles that are only now realizing how hard they’ve been braced since the fight. The mineral scent rises softly with the mist. By the time the water reaches my waist, the tension in my body begins to ebb away, the quiet hush of the secluded basin wrapping around us like the world beyond has all but fallen away.

I watched her with rapt attention, shadows lingering over my shoulders as if they too wanted to watch her magic at work. A soft glow pulses from her palms, and the wordless mouthing of words sends water wrapping around my wound like a bandage. Heat radiates from my arm, skin stitching painlessly together under her watchful eye and adept hand.

When it’s done, she looks up at me, as if making sure no other injuries have gone unnoticed. And seeing the care in her eyes, that’s what causes the dam to break.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Her brows furrow, and the water ripples as she takes a gentle step back. “Like what?”

“Like I’m worth choosing.” I look up, bracing for the words before they leave me. Emotional intimacy is harder than hand-to-hand combat by a long shot. “Worth helping.”

“You are.” Her gentle smile is nearly my undoing. “Always have been.”

“Poppy,” I breathe out. “I’ve been an idiot.” My heart is racing. Here it comes. The confession that will change everything. I know Poppy admitted to wanting me with the aid of the truth serum, and I think that admission embarrassed her, if the silence after was any indication, but wanting to be with me was a different thing entirely. A thing no one else had ever wanted. Not for long anyway.

“Riven, you don’t have to⁠—”

“No.” My hands tighten into fists at my sides, the warm water sloshing between them. “Let me be brave once.”

A confused smile slightly pulls up the corners of her lips. “You’re always brave.”

“Not like this.” I grab her hands, holding them in mine beneath the water.

Here goes nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

POPPY

Riven holds my hands in his beneath the water’s surface, rubbing a soft pattern across the backs of them with his thumb. I’ve never seen Riven look so serious. And it’s freaking me out. What could he possibly be about to say?

My mind flashes to last night. To our confessions.

I want you.

Stupid.

He’s going to tell me it made him uncomfortable. That we are just friends.

I won’t be able to survive that. I’ll have to move. Leave my coven and return to my parents’ home to be their spinster caregiver when they finally hit old age.

Thank Fate that I’m not wearing a heart rate monitor now. Though, in all honesty, I don’t know if it could track it. I don’t think a heart has raced like this in all of history.

“Just say it,” I bark, and if I had access to my hands, I’d slap them over my mouth. I didn’t mean to say that. It just flew out as my words have recently made an annoying habit of doing.

That’s becoming an increasing issue lately. I wonder if there is a spell to cure damaging word vomit.