Page 46 of Shifting Hearts 1
I glance toward my blade. Too far.
“You don’t understand what you are,” he says, stepping closer. “What you cost. Alpha Kieran broke the code for you. Brokeus.”
I square my shoulders. “Then maybe you were already broken.”
He moves. Fast.
A flash of steel is aimed at my throat. I twist, stumble, catching the blade with my forearm. Pain blooms. I scream and shove him back, blood slicking my skin.
He snarls. “You don’t belong here.” He thrusts the knife against my throat once more, but as he does, a force begins pushing the blade from me to him. Power thrums through me and into the blade.
The door bursts open.
Kieran.
He sees the blood. Sees me. Seeshim, and something inside him snaps.
He doesn’t speak. He just crosses the room in a blur, grabs the man by the throat, and slams him against the stone. The runes carved into the walls flare, reacting to his fury.
“You touched her,” Kieran sneers, voice like frostbite. “In my room. In my name.”
The man coughs, bloodied. “She’s not one of us.”
Kieran’s eyes burn. “She’s mine.”
He doesn’t kill him. Not yet. He drags him out, throws him before the Brotherhood, and speaks the word that severs all ties.
Exile.
I stand there, shaking, blood dripping down my arm, Kieran’s shirt torn and stained.
I don’t know these men. Don’t know their laws or loyalties. But I know this; I’m already part of their war.
And tonight, I learned what it costs.
ELEVEN
Kieran
Ihear her scream before I see the blood.
The sound slices through the stone like a blade; sharp, wrong,hers. I’m halfway down the corridor, speaking with the sentries, when it hits me. Raven.
I run like the depths of hell are biting at my heels.
The door to my room hangs ajar. I slam it open, heart hammering, and there he is. One of my own, cloaked in Brotherhood black, standing over her with a blade slicked red.
And Raven—gods, Raven—is clutching her arm, blood dripping down her skin, eyes wide with fury and fear.
I don’t think, just act.
I cross the room in a blink, grab him by the throat, and slam him into the wall so hard that the runes flare. Thorne gasps, blade clattering to the floor.
“You touched her,” I sneer, voice low, lethal. “In my room. In my name.”
He coughs, bloodied, defiant. “She’s not one of us.”
“She’s mine,” I growl. “And you don’t touch what’s mine.”
