Page 34 of Shifting Hearts 1
“Kieran.”
I look back.
“Why me?”
I meet her gaze, and for a moment, the truth presses against my teeth.
“Because the prophecy didn’t name you,” I utter. “Itwarnedabout you.”
I wait until her door clicks shut behind me, until the house settles around her like a protective shroud. Then I turn down thewest corridor, past the mirror that doesn’t reflect anything after dusk, and into my room.
The wards hum as I cross the threshold. Familiar. Heavy. Binding.
I don’t light the candles. I don’t need to. The shadows know me here. They curl around the edges of the room like loyal beasts, whispering in tongues older than language itself.
I shrug off my coat, toss it over the armchair, and sink onto the edge of the bed. My bones ache. Not from battle, but restraint.
She’s here.Finally. And every instinct I’ve buried claws its way to the surface.
Mine.
The word pulses through me like a drumbeat. Not just desire, not just fate. Something deeper. Older. The mark on my shoulder burns faintly, reacting to her presence even through stone walls and layered wards.
I grip the edge of the mattress, knuckles white.
I was warned this would happen– that when the mate bond snapped into place, it wouldn’t be gentle. It would be wildfire. Ruin. A reckoning.
Gods help me, I want it.
But she’s not ready. Not yet. She doesn’t know what she is, what she carries. The prophecy didn’t name her—itveiledher. Hid her from the ones who would use her, break her, claim her without love.
I won’t be one of them.
I close my eyes, letting the house speak. It murmurs of bloodlines and broken oaths, of the last time a bond like this was forged, and the war it unleashed.
I see her face behind my eyelids. Tired. Fierce. Fragile in ways she doesn’t admit.
She’s not just my mate. She’s the fulcrum. The storm. The key.
And if I claim her too soon, I could lose her forever.
I stand, pacing. The shadows follow.
I need to protect her. Teach her. Let her choose me freely.
But every time she looks at me with those haunted eyes, every time her scent brushes my skin, I feel the tether tighten.
The bond is awakening.
And soon, she will too.
SIX
Raven
Iwake tangled in sheets that smell like cedar and smoke. My body aches from tossing and turning all night, my mind raw from the visions that wouldn’t let me rest. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again; flashes of fire, stone, and that voice echoing through the dark.
The room is quiet, but not still. The fire’s burned low, casting long shadows across the walls. I swear I hear breathing; soft, rhythmic, but when I turn, there’s no one there.
