Page 177 of Shifting Hearts 1
He had finally discarded his coat — the heavy fabric folded and forgotten beside the altar like a discarded shroud — and under the flickering light, his muscles twitched beneath his worn shirt. It’s not the cold that has him trembling, but something sharper. Rage, or grief perhaps. It’s hard to tell.
“I can hear you thinking,” I murmured, breaking the silence. My voice sounded small against the vast space of this forgotten cathedral, almost as if it had been swallowed by the cavernous space.
He stopped suddenly, the storm outside pressed in like a fist against the sealed entrance, rattling the stones in their ancient joints. His eyes flashed in the dim light, wild and wary, twin fires barely contained. “You want me to stop?”
“No,” I said softly. “I want you to talk.”
He scoffed, turned his back to me, all broad and wolflike in silhouette. The fire crackled between us, and the heavy scent of wet stone and moss along with threads of old magic hung around. The storm roared beyond the doors, to the outside world that we could no longer reach. I almost hated it. Almost.
Still, the silence stretched between us, and slowly, carefully, I slipped the cord from around my neck. “I’ve kept this,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper, like a secret, spilled among the shadows. Fitting really given where we were. “For years. Before I even knew what it was.”
Brannon turned toward me, suspicion sharp in his gaze. The way his eyes flickered over the bone was almost reverent, wary. I held the bone up so he could see it clearly — the faint glint of pale ivory catching the firelight, too sharp and too large to be human. A fang.Hisfang.
“I found it in the dreamscape,” I said. “Back when I was still with the Dark Court. I didn’t know why I picked it up — I just… felt like I should. Like it wanted to be kept safe.”
He stepped forward slowly, cautiously, eyes locked on the tooth as if it might suddenly open its jaws and strike. “That’s not possible.”
“And yet,” I whispered. “Here it is.”
Brannon crouched down opposite me, his shadow falling over mine, swallowed in the firelight. His gaze snapped to mine — sharp, searching, like he’s looking for some truth buried beneath the surface. “I lost that tooth in a dream.”
“I know.”
“It bled.”
“Dreambone always does.”
He doesn’t reach for it. He knew better. The bone pulsed faintly in my palm, thrumming against the thread of fate that was tangled between us — something stubborn and raw and yet unbroken, despite everything.
Now I understood. It was his tether.
“You cut your own fate thread,” I said. “Didn’t you?”
He exhaled — not a sigh, but a death rattle he’d held in his throat for far too long. “Yes.”
My breath caught. I hadn’t expected him to admit it.
“I did it to save my sister,” he said, voice low and rough… cracked. “Wyrd wolves… there’s so few of us left. And she… there was a curse, something ancient, tangled deep in the Wyrd, and it demanded something be severed. It didn’t speak of what, or who, so I gave it mine.”
“And the tooth…?”
“Dreamscape logic, I guess. The fang was a part of the old me, the one that’s still caught in that endless, shifting dream realm. When I came back, I wasn’t whole.”
“You came back,” I echoed, disbelief threaded in my voice.
He nodded, jaw tight. “But the thread never healed right. The Wyrd stitched me back together, but when it did, it did so with only half of my soul.”
I got it now. The way he shied from my touch. The way his eyes darkened when I pressed the tooth to my skin. The way he flinched was like I had just opened a wound, because I had.
“I’m your punishment,” I said softly, almost afraid to speak the truth aloud.
His gaze sharpened, furious and raw. “What?”
“The death-oath,” I said. Each word dragged as though it had been waiting years to be spoken. “I made it years ago. A name I didn’t know, a face I’d never seen. The Dark Court gave me blood, and I drank it. I thought it was a metaphor.”
“Nothing with the Dark Court is ever metaphor,” he snarled, his voice brittle with pain, that was sharp enough to cut.
“No,” I agreed, my tone weighed down with the bitterness that truth brought. “And now here we are.”
