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I clench my jaw and shove it down. Orders. Orders I can manage.

"Kaelen, the fire. Build it up. As high as it'll go."

He's already moving.

"Rhydian, blankets. All of them. Then heat some water."

"Already on it." Rhydian's voice is strange, tight in a way I've rarely heard from him.

"We need to get her warm and check her for wounds," I say. "Find out how bad the cold got her."

Nothing else matters. Not our dragons. Not what we want. Not until I know she's going to live.

I carry her across the cabin to the bed.

It's an absurd thing, that bed. We had it built years ago, big enough for three dragon kings and the mate we kept promising ourselves we'd find. It's been a running joke for so long that none of us even laugh at it anymore.

I lay her down in the middle of it. She looks lost there. Tiny.

My dragon doesn't think it's absurd at all. My dragon thinks she looks exactly where she belongs.

"Easy," I mutter to it.

Rhydian returns with an armful of blankets and furs and dumps them at the foot of the bed. Kaelen has the fire roaring already, flames climbing up the chimney, and he keeps feeding it log after log like he can force the heat into her by sheer stubbornness.

"Her clothes are soaked through," Rhydian says. "They have to come off."

"I know."

None of us moves for a heartbeat.

Then I nod, and we work fast. Cloak first, frozen stiff at the hem. Then her boots, waterlogged and temporarily ruined. Rhydian holds a blanket up between us and her while I strip away the sodden outer layers. We keep everything covered. We keep our eyes where they should be. Then we wrap her in dry wool, then furs on top of that, until she's buried up to her chin.

Rhydian brings warm cloths and presses them carefully against her hands and feet. I check her arms, her legs, her scalp, every inch just a little at a time, to ensure her safety, and her modesty. My hands aren't quite as sure as they ought to be.

No bites. No gashes. And nothing broken.

Kaelen hovers near the hearth. He doesn't come closer.

"Well?" he growls.

"No wounds," I say. "Not serious ones. But she's frozen half to death, and spent."

The relief in the room is so thick I could cut it with a blade.

I sit on the edge of the bed, beside her. I don't decide to. I'm just there.

Rhydian drops into the chair by the fire, his tousled copper hair falling across his forehead as he scrubs both hands down his face. His usual mischievous smile is gone, and even his warm golden eyes seem troubled.

"Gods," he says. "I always thought this would feel different."

"What would?"

"Finding her." He laughs, but there's nothing behind it. "All these years, I imagined it. You know I did. Some grand moment. Our dragons roaring. Triumph. Lust. Wine. Possibly fireworks."

"Possibly fireworks," Kaelen repeats flatly. The largest of the three of us stands beside the fireplace, his enormous arms crossed over his chest. His long dark brown hair hangs past his shoulders, framing a rugged face marked by a scar that runs through one eyebrow and down his cheek. His amber eyes flick toward the bed like it contains his whole world, which it does.

"I never imagined watching a wolf try to tear her throat out." Rhydian's voice drops. "I never imagined carrying her in here like this. Not knowing if she was going to wake up."