Page 104 of Shifting Hearts 1
“Yes.”
I sit up, dragging the thin excuse for a blanket with me. It’s not like I didn’t expect it. Lucian’s guilt hangs on him like a second skin, thick, unrelenting, and stitched from the tatters of a past he refuses to tell me about.
But hearing it still hurts.
“Of course,” I say lightly, voice brittle. “Why wouldn’t you? You’ve already rejected me once. Let’s make it a pattern.”
He doesn’t argue. He just sits up too, scrubbing a hand over his face like he’s already exhausted.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
“Nothing ever is.”
“You don’t get it…”
“I do,” I snap, standing. “You want me when it’s easy. When I’m bleeding for you, when I’m bait, when I’m half-naked and silent. But when I want you back, when I ask for more than just scraps, you run.”
His eyes flash. “That’s not fair.”
“No? What’s fair, Lucian? That you get to screw me in the middle of a storm, pump me full of cum, and then act like it meant nothing in the light of day?”
He’s up in an instant, butt naked and furious. “Don’t twist this.”
“I’m not twisting anything. You’re the one who keeps twisting me.”
And there it is. The truth between us. Jagged, raw, and real. Neither of us speaks as we dress. The air between us is sharp. Cold. And so full of things unsaid that I want to scream just to break it.
I lace my boots while he sharpens a blade. Like we’re getting ready for a war neither of us wants to admit we already lost. Outside, the forest is too quiet but that’s what saves us for fighting again.
The silence.
I freeze as we step off the porch. My breath clouds in front of me, wrong, too cold, and simply unnatural. It’s the middle of summer and the sun is already high in the sky.
Lucian stiffens beside me.
“Something’s here,” I whisper.
He nods. “Yes, we’re being watched.”
The air splits and then it is on us.The creature that crashes through the trees is bigger than the first. Taller than a man, shaped like a wolf and a corpse and a nightmare all in one.
Its eyes burn silver but not like the moonlight does in a true shifter wolf. No, this is magic. Witch magic. And it’s gaze is locked on me.
Lucian shifts mid-run, bones cracking, fur exploding across his skin, growl tearing from his throat like thunder. He slams into the thing before it reaches me, his teeth sinking into its shoulder and his claws raking across its spine.
But the creature doesn’t flinch. It laughs, dark and maniacal and my pulse spikes. This isn’t just some monster. It’s a message.
I fling a spell without thinking, fire and salt and blood, the kind that strips the soul bare. The thing recoils, shrieking, smoke pouring from its mouth. But it doesn’t die, it just changes its target.
Lucian.
It throws him through the air, and he lands hard. He hits a thick tree trunk with a sickening crack, and I scream before I can stop myself. My magic surges, wild, uncontrolled, and furious.
I hurl another spell. This one explodes in the creature’s chest, sending it staggering, limbs twisting, jaws snapping in agony.
Lucian shifts back, blood dripping from his mouth, breathing ragged. “Kill it,” he demands.
“I’m trying!” I yell back angrily.
