"She's alive," he muttered, not meeting my eyes. "Barely."
The wool still smelled like her like wild mint and stubbornness. I clutched it to my chest, my vision blurring.
Jax's knuckles brushed my tear-streaked cheek. "Don't make me regret this."
Then he was gone, leaving me drowning in hope and guilt.
That night, I dreamed of Mira's face in the dungeon.
"You like it," she'd whispered. "Don't lie."
I woke gasping, my skin on fire.
Kael was there before I could scream, hauling me against his chest. "Breathe," he ordered, his palm flat between my shoulder blades.
I hated how safe I felt.
Hated how my tears soaked his tunic.
Hated how his lips pressed to my hair not in victory, but in something dangerously close to comfort. The first time I noticed Riven watching me sleep, I thought I had imagined it.
The fire had burned low, leaving the chamber bathed in flickering shadows. I stirred, half-awake, and felt the weight of a gaze upon me. There, in the chair by the dying embers, sat Riven still as a statue, his pale eyes gleaming in the dark.
He didn't touch me. Didn't speak.
Just watched.
Like I was a puzzle he couldn't solve.
Dawn painted the sky in muted gold when I finally gathered the courage to ask.
"Why do you watch me?"
Riven didn't startle. He never did. His fingers paused on the whetstone where he'd been sharpening his dagger, the rhythmic shink-shink ceasing.
"You talk in your sleep," he said at last.
That was all.
But when I turned away, I caught the way his knuckles whitened around the blade.
The shower was already running when I entered the bathing chamber the next morning, steam curling in the air. I didn't hear him at first not until the glass door slid open behind me.
Riven stood there, bare as the day he was born, water sluicing down the hard planes of his chest.
"Join me," he said.
Not an order.
A request.
My breath hitched, but I didn't refuse.
The water was scalding, but Riven's hands were careful. He turned me gently, his palms slick with soap as they glided over my shoulders, down my spine.
"You're tense," he murmured, his thumbs pressing into the knots along my lower back.
I shuddered. "You're…"
Not what I expected.
He huffed a quiet laugh against my damp hair, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. "I know."
Then his hands were everywhere soothing, worshipping, tracing every scar and curve like he was memorizing me.
After, when we stood dripping on the tiles, he cupped my face.
"I watch you," he admitted, his voice rough, "because you're the only thing in this world that makes me want to be gentle."
And when he kissed me, it wasn't with teeth or dominance.
It was with reverence.
The scent hit me first smoke and storm, the crackling ozone of an alpha's fury.
I was still damp from the bath, wrapped in nothing but Riven's shirt, when the chamber door exploded inward.
Kael stood in the wreckage, his golden eyes molten with rage.
"You."
The word wasn't directed at me.
Riven stepped in front of me, his bare chest still glistening from the shower. "Kael"
Kael moved like lightning. One moment he was at the door, the next he had Riven pinned against the stone wall, his forearm crushing his throat.
"You touched what's mine," Kael snarled, his canines elongating.
I'd never seen him like this not even in the dungeons. This wasn't calculated dominance. This was something raw. Primal.
Riven didn't fight back. He bared his throat further. "I did."
The admission made Kael's grip tighten.
I expected violence.
Instead, Kael sniffed Riven long and deep, his nose dragging along the other alpha's jaw. Then he froze.
"You didn't knot her."
Riven's icy eyes flicked to me. "No."
Kael released him abruptly, turning that burning gaze on me. "Why?"
My mouth went dry. He wasn't asking Riven.
"I…."
"Because she wasn't ready." Riven straightened, rubbing his throat. "And neither were you."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Kael seized my wrist, yanking me against his chest. His free hand tangled in Riven's hair, forcing their foreheads together.
"You want to share?" Kael's voice was a dark promise. "Then we share."
He dragged us both to the bed.
Much later, when the furs were soaked with sweat and Kael's teeth were buried in my shoulder, marking me properly for the first time, Riven pressed a kiss to my knuckles.
"Jealous bastard," he murmured against my skin.
Kael growled around the mark, but didn't deny it.
And when his knot finally locked inside me, it was Riven who wiped my tears away.