Page 179 of Shifting Hearts 1
SIX
Brannan
The air in the cathedral crackled. Magic charged the stones beneath us, steeped in the blood and bones of long-forgotten rituals. It wasn’t just history that haunted this place, it was something living, something watching. Something waiting.
I felt it in the back of my throat. In the heat prickling under my skin. In the way my threads twisted, pulling tight around my ribs like a snare.
Eris knelt across from the fire; her silhouette painted in orange light and long shadows. Bone glinted at her hip. Her knives — sacred, cursed, holy — glowed faintly, as if remembering their purpose. As if they sensed what was coming.
She looked like a storm. Wind and flame and fury contained in skin.
And I was so fucking tired of pretending I didn’t want to be struck by her.
“I thought you’d left.” My voice was low, gravelled, splintered with restraint. “You always leave.”
“I should’ve,” she said. Her fingers flexed against her thigh, her voice was brittle. “But I didn’t.”
The silence stretched, again, taut and dangerous.
She didn’t move. Not yet. But her eyes flicked to mine like a match against dry bark, like she wanted to burn me alive and hated herself for it.
I don’t know which one of us moved first. Maybe we both did. It didn’t matter much, because in the next beat of my heart, she was in my arms, and I was wrapped in hers, and the fire between us roared.
Her mouth met mine with desperation, not softness. It wasn’t a kiss — it was a battle. Her teeth caught my lip, sharp, and I tasted copper. I didn’t care. I grabbed the back of her neck, my hands tangling in her hair, as I pulled her closer until there was no breath between us. Her body against mine, all edges and heat and fury.
Clothes tore. Not removed —ripped. My tunic split down the front, her fingers impatient. Her shirt fell away under my hands, thin fabric tearing like parchment under bloodstained fingers. Her skin was hot. Soft. Alive.
“Fuck,” I hissed as her teeth grazed my throat.
“Still sure you don’t want this?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My hands slid over her hips — greedy, reverent, starving.
Magic flared — hers and mine. The cathedral lit from the inside, the knives at her waist pulsing a cold, eerie blue. My threads burned scarlet, coiling around my wrists and up her spine, binding us without consent.
She straddled me, one knee braced on either side of my thighs, her fingers curling around my jaw. I looked up at her — wild, furious, beautiful — and for a second, I thought I might beg.
But she didn’t want my submission. She wanted the truth. All of it.
I ran my hands up her back, her waist, her ribs, dragging her flush against me. Her breath caught as I groaned against her, hips rising, the heat between us was electric.
So when I slid inside her, it wasn’t gentle. It was brutal. Hard.
Her breath shattered, and my name broke from her lips like a curse, like a prayer, like a promise she knew she couldn’t keep.
She moved with purpose — fast, hard, as if trying to chase the pain away. And I met her rhythm, thrust for thrust, our bodies moving like weapons — angry and sharp.
She clenched around me, tight and slick and hot, and I almost came undone right there, but I didn’t, I held on, Ineededto hold on, because with every movement, every breath, the magic between us surged.
I saw things — fragments, flashes — pieces of her memory, her soul. Her hands shook as she took her oath. Her mother’s face, proud and cruel. The moment she choseme, again and again, even when it tore her in half.
And I felt her in me, too. Her visions invaded my mind. The way I’d gripped my brother’s corpse and screamed to the sky. The long, cold years of silence and duty. My own face reflected in the glass of fate — tired… alone… damned.
I kissed her like I was drowning.
She bit my shoulder, and I welcomed the pain. It was real.Shewas real.
The cathedral pulsed with light, with heat, and the passion of us.
