Page 23 of Shifting Hearts 1

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Into Hell— I Prevail

Beg (On Your Knees)— Ash to Eden

ERUPT— Dré Tamashi

Slide— gonedark

Mess of You— Oscen

Chills (Dark Version)— Mickey Valen & Joey Myron

Only The Evil Once— Drayce Music

Angels On The Moon— Thriving Ivory

We Are Warriors— Avril Lavigne

Nightmare— Halsey

DIE 4 U— Kami Kehoe

The Alchemy— Taylor Swift

Spotify Playlist

For every soul who’s ever been cast out, told they were too much, too wild, too broken—this story is yours.

You are the fire they couldn’t extinguish.

PROLOGUE

Raven

The forest devours me whole, wet earth clinging to my skin, branches clawing at me like teeth.

Darkness presses against my skin, thick and choking, wrapping around my throat like a vice. The wind screams through the trees, ripping at my clothes, tearing strands of hair free, but I barely feel it. I am numb. I am burning. I am breaking.

I run because if I stop, I will shatter.

Branches lash against my arms, carving lines into my flesh. Proof that I still exist, that I am more than just the echo of something never meant to be. The ground is treacherous beneath my bare feet, slick with mud, riddled with jagged stones and tangled roots. I don’t care. I don’t stop. Pain is irrelevant. Pain is nothing compared to this.

"You were never meant to be one of us."

Aldric’s voice is a phantom slicing through my ribs, burrowing deep, and festering. I knew this was coming. I had known my entire life, but knowing doesn’t soften the blade.

I wasn’t just rejected.

I was cast out.

The air stings my throat, each breath slicing like shattered glass, like splintered bone. The pack is behind me, somewhere in the distance, their scent clinging to my skin. They will track me. Not because they want me back, but because I shouldn’t be allowed to exist outside them.

I should be terrified.

I should be begging for mercy.

But there is no mercy for creatures like me.

No wolf. No shift. No purpose.

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