Page 57 of A Match Made in Error

I swallow. “Your hand is on my waist.”

He clears his throat and glances down, like he’s only just realized how he’s holding me. How boxed in I am by his body. “I’m stabilizing you.”

“You’re breathing on my neck.”

“Airflow,” he says quickly. “Absolutely necessary for stabilization.”

I almost laugh. Almost. Instead, my heart pounds harder because his grip doesn’t loosen. If anything, it firms, like he’s anchoring me against some danger unseen.

“Riven,” someone calls from the sidelines, laughter threading their voice, “it was an illusion test. Not a battlefield.”

He doesn’t look away from me. And that, more than the hands, more than the closeness, is what threatens to undo me.

Because friends don’t look like this.

And men who only see you as a friend don’t touch you like they’re afraid you might disappear if they let go.

I swallow. I’m imagining this. I have to be.

“She’s fine, man. Move so we can get this over with. The witch is fine.” The unfamiliar male voice ricochets off the cave walls.

Something dark flashes across Riven’s face.

He spins, shoulders squaring, one arm tucking me behind him like he’s bracing for violence as his voice cracks through the chamber. “Then why was it targeting Poppy? Why did it have teeth? Why was it looking at her like⁠—”

“Riven,” the voice cuts in, properly laughing now, “it was literally a shadow puppy with baby fangs, a cloaked figure, and a weed.”

Silence drops.

Riven takes one step forward, and the temperature in the cave seems to plunge with his shifting mood. “Laugh again,” he says quietly, voice full of malice, “and you will face the same fate as the puppy did.” His words hold gravity, pressing down on the room until everyone feels the oppressive weight of them.

The words don’t echo. They settle. Heavy. Final. The room presses inward, every breath suddenly measured, every person acutely aware of their own pulse.

I reach for him before he can do something irreversible, like siccing his shadows on this man. My fingers brush the solid plane of his back. “I’m okay, Riven,” I whisper. “You don’t have to protect me anymore.”

For a moment, he doesn’t move.

Then, he turns, positioning himself so completely between me and the world that everything else ceases to exist. His jaw is tight, muscle ticking beneath his skin, but his eyes soften when they find mine.

“I know,” he says, low and steady. His peppermint-laced breath ghosts over my mouth, over my cheek.

Familiar.

Dangerous.

“But try telling that to my instincts,” he finishes.

My chest aches at the word.

Instinct.

Not choice. Not care. Not affection.

Just something wired into him, something primal and unthinking. Something that would flare for anyone standing where I stood.

I nod anyway, swallowing the disappointment before it can betray me.

Of course it’s instinct, I tell myself grimly. Nothing more than that.