Dawn broke with the subtlety of a hammer through glass.
Michelle stirred first through layers of deep sleep toward consciousness. Something was warm against her back, solid, protective, radiating heat like a living furnace. Her sleep-fogged mind catalogued the sensation before full awareness hit: arms around her, hand still tangled in her hair, the scent of pine and wild things, steady breathing against her back head.
Riven.
Her eyes snapped open.
He was still there. Still holding her like this as his position hadn't changed from what she vaguely remembered, half-sitting against the headboard, one arm wrapped around her shoulders, the other hand resting in her hair. His head had completely tipped towards her at some point during the night, exposing the strong line of his throat, and even in sleep his expression held traces of that protective intensity.
He stayed all night, Michelle thought, and felt something warm and terrible bloom in her chest before she could crush it. She should move.
She tried to move. His arm tightened.
"Riven," she whispered. "Riven, I need to—" She tried to extract herself before anyone saw them, before this became a diplomatic complication but just then the door opened.
Even though it was not slammed or burst open, just... kindly pushed with the kind of deliberate control that somehow felt more dangerous than violence as the aura standing there was fuming.
Michelle's breath caught while Riven's eyes snapped open instantly as if sensing a grave danger—golden, wolf-bright, a warning growl already rumbling in his chest. His arms tightened around Michelle in a movement so automatic it had to be pure instinct.
Dragon Lord Kael stood in the doorway, perfectly still.
For exactly three seconds, nobody moved. The temperature in the room spiked so dramatically that Michelle felt sweat break out across her forehead.
His expression was a masterwork of control, neutral, almost polite, as if he'd simply walked into the wrong room by accident. But his eyes told a different story. They cycled from warm amber to something darker, something that made the air itself feel heavier. And smoke—just the faintest wisp curled from his nostrils.
"Good morning," Kael said pleasantly.
Too pleasantly. The way someone says "good morning" right before they commit murder.
"I came to discuss trail arrangements." His smile was terrifying. "But I can see you're... busy. Should I schedule for later? After the cuddling?" The way he said "cuddling" made it sound like a violent crime. He then paused and added lastly. "Should I apologize for the intrusion!?"
The pause was so slight most people would have missed it. Michelle didn't miss it. Neither did Riven, whose growl intensified.
"She collapsed in the garden last night," Riven said flatly, making no move to release her. "I prevented her from cracking her skull open. You can also express your gratitude over that,"
"How fortunate you were positioned to intercept her fall." Kael stepped into the room, and the temperature immediately spiked. "Almost as if you've been monitoring her movements specifically."
"I was monitoring her condition."
"With your entire body?"
"Wolves run hot. She was in shock. Body heat is medically indicated."
"How convenient that medical treatment looks exactly like—"
"I monitor all potential vulnerabilities in my territory." Riven's tone was utterly bland. "That's called basic tactical awareness. You should try it sometime."
Michelle felt the tension ratcheting up with every word and realized with growing horror that she was still pressed against Riven's chest, his arm around her shoulders, in a tableau that looked far more intimate than the medical intervention it had been.
"I need to get up," she muttered, pushing at Riven's arm. He didn't budge. It was like pushing at a boulder.
"In a moment," he said absently, his attention still fixed on Kael.
Michelle tried again to extract herself. Riven's grip didn't budge. She was essentially trapped between an increasingly possessive werewolf and a dragon who looked like he was calculating exactly how much fire it would take to incinerate the bed without harming its other occupant.
"Interesting," Kael said, his voice still that dangerous kind of soft, "that your wolf recognizes threats so acutely. I didn't realize you'd expanded your surveillance to include Elder Mira's private guest wing."
"My boundaries..." Riven replied, his eyes narrowing, "extend to wherever my people might be in danger. Feral lands are notoriously treacherous. Wouldn't want any... diplomatic incidents."
"No," Kael agreed, smoke wisping more visibly now. "We certainly wouldn't want those. Which is why I'm here to coordinate Michelle's security for the trial. As the party who formally requested sanctuary on her behalf, I'm responsible for ensuring myself—"
"You requested sanctuary and I'm providing it," Riven interrupted.
"Are you?" Kael took another step into the room. Scales rippled briefly beneath the skin of his neck before he controlled them. "Because from where I'm standing, your pack doesn't have sole authority. If anyone should be ensuring her safety, it's me."
"You?" Riven's canines were slightly elongated now, a tell he probably didn't realize he was showing. "Last I checked, dragons don't take responsibility for humans. You collect them like interesting coins and display them when it suits your political interests."
"And wolves treat them like wounded prey that needs constant shepherding." Kael's hands were loose at his sides, but Michelle noticed they wanted to clench. "Smothering isn't the same as protecting."
"Neither is parading them into dangerous trials to prove a point."
"I didn't 'parade' her anywhere. She made her own choice."
The room was a battlefield of competing scents—Kael's smoke and cinnamon heat, Riven's pine and wild fur. Her own scent felt overwhelmed, caught between predators whose behavior she didn't understand.
"Okay," Michelle said loudly. "Okay, everybody just calm down and Riven, please let go."
"You are shaking."
"I'm shaking because..." I'm getting angry!
"I don't think you're in control as you were also making distressed sounds in your sleep."
"I don't—what sounds?"
"Small sounds. Whimpers." Riven's hand tightened fractionally. "I can provide more comfort by..."
"COMFORT!?" Kael exploded, and a small tongue of flame actually licked out between his teeth. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"What would you call it?" Riven challenged.
"An interesting interpretation of appropriate professional boundaries."
"Professional? Since when have you been professional about anything involving—"
"Involving what?" Dark scales rippled visibly up his neck. "Please, Alpha. Finish that sentence. I'm fascinated to hear your perspective on my relationship with Michelle."
"You don't have a relationship with Michelle."
"Neither do you, yet you're currently in her bed."
"A fact I'm certain is purely medical."
"Is it? Then you won't mind moving."
"I mind very much, actually. She's still in a fragile state."
"She looks fine to me."
"That's because you don't know how to recognize—"
"I WILL THROW BOTH OF YOU OUT THE WINDOW," Michelle bellowed.
Both men stopped. Stared at her.
"STOP." Michelle finally managed to wrench herself out of Riven's grip through sheer determination and awkward wiggling. She stood between them, suddenly aware that she was in sleep clothes, that her hair was a disaster, and that two of the most powerful beings she'd ever met were having what appeared to be a territorial dispute in her borrowed bedroom. "Both of you, just... stop."
They looked at her. Really looked at her, and the intensity of their combined attention made her want to crawl back into bed and hide under the blankets.
"This is about the trial, isn't it?" Michelle wrapped her arms around herself, trying to think past the tension and her own exhaustion. "You're both worried that if I fail, it creates political complications. Or reflects badly on your territories." She looked between them, seeing Kael's carefully blank expression and Riven's tightened jaw. "I get it. The optics are bad. A human under your protection fails Lord Ash's trial—it makes you both look weak or incompetent or whatever passes for political liability in this world."
Silence.
Kael opened his mouth, then closed it. His expression flickered with something she couldn't read. Riven's eyes narrowed.
Michelle gestured between them. "Since, I'm a human you've both gotten entangled with through circumstances neither of you planned for. Of course you're concerned about the diplomatic ramifications." She tried to smile, to lighten the oppressive atmosphere. "Look, I appreciate that you both feel some kind of obligation—political or strategic or whatever—to make sure I survive this. But that's all this is. Obligation. So can we please stop the posturing and just... agree on a security plan that doesn't involve fighting in my bedroom?"
The silence that followed was somehow worse than the arguing.
Kael's expression shuttered completely. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly neutral. "Of course. Obligation. I apologize for losing sight of the practical concerns." He inclined his head with mechanical precision. "You're absolutely right. This is simply about maintaining diplomatic relationships and ensuring that the sanctuary request doesn't result in unnecessary complications."
"Exactly," Michelle said, relief flooding through her. "I knew you'd understand."
"Naturally." Kael's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I'll coordinate with Elder Mira about the escort to the Den. Unless the Alpha has objections?"
Riven was staring at Michelle with an expression she couldn't decipher. Something between disbelief and resignation and something else entirely. "No objections," he said finally. "As long as the human survives, the strategic considerations are satisfied."
"The human has a name," Michelle muttered, but she was too tired to put real heat behind it.
"Yes, Michelle," Riven corrected, his tone odd. "As long as Michelle survives."
"That's the goal," Kael agreed. Then, after a beat: "I'll return in an hour to discuss the security details. That should give you both time to..." He gestured vaguely. "Compose yourselves."
He left without another word, closing the door with exaggerated gentleness that somehow felt more damning than slamming it.
Michelle exhaled. "Thank god that's over. I thought you two were actually going to fight."
Riven made a sound that might have been a laugh or a growl. "You really think that's what that was about?"
"Obviously?" Michelle turned to look at him. He was still sitting on her bed, his hair disheveled, his expression caught between exasperation and something that looked almost like frustration. "You and Kael were arguing about jurisdiction and political responsibility. What else would it be about?"
He stared at her for a long moment. Then shook his head. "Nothing. You're right. Just politics."
"Are you okay?" Michelle stepped closer, concerned despite herself. "You look... I don't know. Angry?"
"Not angry." Riven stood, and Michelle was reminded viscerally of just how much larger he was. How he'd held her through the night like she was something precious instead of a diplomatic complication. "Just disappointed in your assessment of the situation."
"What's that supposed to mean, I hardly knowing anything about you all?"
"Sure," Riven said, moving toward the door, then muttered the next line to himself making sure she couldn't hear. "humans are remarkably skilled at not seeing what's right in front of them." he paused at the threshold. Then he was gone too, and Michelle was alone in her room, confused and unsettled.
In the hallway, Riven leaned against the wall and pressed his palms against his eyes.
His wolf was snarling, furious, demanding he go back in there and explain exactly why he'd stayed. Why he'd held her. Why the thought of her walking into that trial without him made his chest feel like it was caving in.
Ridiculous. She's just a human. A temporary complication who'll be gone from your life as soon as the political situation resolves. Your wolf can't possibly get attached to injured creatures before—it doesn't mean anything.
The fact that he'd never spent an entire night holding someone before, that he'd watched her sleep with something dangerously close to tenderness, that hearing her dismiss his concern as "political obligation" had felt like a physical blow—
He crushed the thought brutally. Duty. This was duty. Perhaps his wolf was confused and need a release, that's all. Protective instinct misfiring. It happened. None of that meant anything.
His wolf howled in protest, but Riven shoved it down with practiced force.
Meanwhile, three doors down, Dragon Kael stood perfectly still, breathing carefully measured breaths to cool the fire in his lungs.
Smoke kept curling from his nostrils despite his best efforts. His dragon was furious—not at Riven specifically, though the wolf's possessive hold on Michelle certainly didn't help. No, his dragon was furious at the situation. At finding her in another male's arms. At the casual intimacy of it. At the way she'd looked rumpled and soft and utterly unaware of what her proximity was doing to both of them.
Which makes no sense, he reminded himself firmly. Did she forget that he expressed interest in claiming her even if it was solely for his dragon's reasons...
The sick feeling in his stomach when he'd seen Riven holding her? Just territorial instinct. Dragons didn't share their treasures. It was suppose to be entirely personal.
The way his hands had wanted to shift into claws? The urge to physically remove the wolf from her space? His dragon-beast snarled in agreement, and Kael felt his scales threaten to emerge again. He forced them down with practiced control.
But the smoke wouldn't stop, and his hands wouldn't unclench, and the memory of her standing between them in sleep clothes with her hair a mess wouldn't leave his mind.
Meanwhile, Michelle washed up and then dressed mechanically, her mind already spiralling toward first trail now, toward the Den, toward the moment her carefully constructed walls would come crashing down.
But part of her kept circling back to the strange tension in her room. The way Kael and Riven had looked at each other like enemies forced into temporary alliance. The odd note in Riven's voice when he'd said "disappointed in your assessment." The way Kael's expression had shuttered when she'd mentioned political obligation.
You're reading too much into it, she told herself firmly. They're powerful beings with their own political agendas. You're a complication they're managing. That's all.
But some small, treacherous part of her whispered: Then why did Riven stay all night? Why did Kael look like he wanted to burn something when he saw you in the wolf's arms?
She crushed the thought immediately. They cared about her survival for strategic reasons. Nothing more.
And if some tiny part of her chest ached at that assessment if some foolish part of her wanted them to care for reasons that had nothing to do with politics well, that was just another weakness she'd have to bury. Just like everything else.
Michelle finished dressing and sat on the edge of her bed, forcing herself to breathe through the mounting panic. In a few hours, Lord Ash would tear open every wound, display every failure, prove definitively that she was unworthy on her own. And Kael and Riven would finally understand why staying away was the kindest thing anyone could do.
Good, she told herself fiercely. Let them see. Let them learn what happens to people who get too close. Then maybe they'll stop with this protective posturing and leave.
The thought brought an odd relief.
When Michelle finally emerged from her room an hour later, both Dragon Kael and Alpha Riven were waiting in the hallway. They stood on opposite sides, carefully not looking at each other, the picture of professional courtesy.
"Ready?" Kael asked, his tone perfectly neutral.
"As I'll ever be," Michelle said.
They began walking, one on each side of her, maintaining precise distance. Neither touched her. Neither spoke. The silence was oppressive.
After several minutes, Michelle couldn't take it anymore. "Are you two going to be weird all day? Because if this is about the bedroom thing—"
"It's not about the bedroom thing," they said simultaneously, then glared at each other.
Michelle blinked. "Okay?" She looked between them. They were both lying badly as the tension between them felt almost physical, like static before lightning.
"You're both being weird," she muttered.
"We're being professional," Kael corrected.
"Appropriately cautious," Riven added.
"Weird," Michelle repeated firmly. "But fine. Be weird. I have bigger problems than whatever thing you two are doing."
She missed the look that passed between them—dragon and wolf, both recognizing the other's lie because it mirrored their own.
She thinks this is territorial posturing, Kael thought, somewhere between relief and frustration.
She has no idea, Riven's wolf growled. Oblivious human.
And Michelle, walking between them toward her trial, her execution, remained blissfully unaware that the two beings flanking her were engaged in a battle that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the woman they were both trying desperately not to care about.
But failing. Spectacularly.
Elder Mira watched them from her window as they crossed the courtyard—the human girl flanked by dragon and wolf, both pretending their proximity was coincidence, both radiating enough protective aggression to start a war.
"Fools," she murmured to herself, but there was something like fondness in her voice. "All three of them."
She'd seen this before. The way powerful beings circled someone they couldn't afford to want. The way humans remained oblivious until it was far too late. The way tragedy and devotion became tangled until you couldn't separate one from the other.
It had ended badly last time. She could only hope Michelle was stronger than the girl she'd known before. Because if she weren't...
Well. Elder Mira wasn't sure she could bear to bury another.
But watching them disappear into the forest Mira could only whisper a prayer to gods who rarely listened: "Let her be strong enough. Please..." Then she turned from the window, her old heart heavy with hope and fear in equal measure.