Page 176 of Shifting Hearts 1
Her gaze flicked down to my mouth, lingering there for a heartbeat too long before she looked away. “The bond hasn’t broken.”
“No.”
“Even though you tried to reject it.”
I leaned in, my breath brushing the curve of her ear, close enough to feel the tension coil in her shoulders. “You want me to finish the job now, Eris? Snap your neck before fate tries again?”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink.
Instead, she whispered, steady as stone, “If you were going to kill me, Brannan… you would have done it already.”
And she was right, and I hated her for that.
The storm beat harder against the cathedral. Thunder shakes the walls, and something ancient stirs beneath the floor.
She laid the milk tooth on the altar. The runes shimmer. Her blood still stains the grooves.
“I didn’t mean to mark you,” she murmurs. “You were a boy. Wild, gold-eyed. You smiled at me. And I hated you for it.”
I move behind her, drawn despite myself.
“Then why did you make the oath?”
Her voice breaks. “Because the court wanted a weapon. Because I didn’t think fate would be so cruel.”
I reach out. My fingers hover just above her shoulder. She turned — slowly, deliberate.
The bond thrums between us like a heartbeat and when our lips meet, it’s not gentle.
It was war.
Teeth. Tongues. A growl that’s half mine, half hers. Her fingers claw into my shirt, pulling me closer. My hands find her waist, her throat, her hips. She tastes like blood and lightning, like ruin and promise. I want her. Gods help me, Ineedher.
But it’s not enough.
Not yet.
Because when I touch her skin, I feel it again — the moment of my death, echoing beneath her heartbeat. A thread tightening.
I break the kiss.
Gasping.
Bleeding, somewhere I can’t see.
She stared at me like I’m the only monster that’s ever made herwantto die.
And maybe I am.
FIVE
Eris
The cathedral breathed around us.
There was no wind, no real air in here — at least, not the kind that stirred leaves or carried a scent — but I felt the old Wyrd magic as it exhaled with every heartbeat, every tiny shift of stone beneath our feet. The air was thick, heavy with something ancient and watching. Moss clung to the cracked walls like frozen veins, and somewhere far off in the shadowed corners, water dripped with a steady, hollow echo. Beneath my skin, a faint hum vibrated, as if the stones themselves were pulsing with memory.
I sat with my back pressed to the moss-covered stone, knees drawn up beneath my chin, and watched Brannon pace like the caged wolf that he was. The light from the fire I’d managed to build flickered low and golden, as it threw long shadows that chose to dance across his sharp features — but even the fire can’t touch the wild, restless energy coiling beneath his skin. It twists and snaps beneath his ribs, restless and unspent.
