Page 49 of Shifting Hearts 1
The first figure breaks from the fog. Hooded. Silent. Then another, and another.
I brace myself.
But they stop at the gates.
One kneels.
Then two.
Then all of them.
A third of the Brotherhood, those who didn’t rise when the call to war was made. The ones who walked out, the ones who remember.
I descend the steps slowly, heart hammering.
The first to rise is Garrick, scarred and silent, once my fiercest lieutenant.
“We heard the rite,” he says. “Felt it in our marks. You bound her. You broke the code.”
He steps forward, unsheathes his blade, and lays it at my feet.
“So we broke with them.”
I look out at the sea of faces. Some I trained, some I bled beside. All of them were marked by the same fire.
“You’ll be hunted,” I say. “Branded traitors.”
Garrick shrugs. “We were Forsaken long before they called us that.”
The sun begins to rise, casting a golden glow across the mountain. Then I sense her. My mate. Everything I’m fighting for, sliding up beside me and grasping my hand.
For the first time in years, I’m not alone.
FOURTEEN
Raven
The air tastes like lightning.
Two lines face each other across the frozen field—Forsaken to my sides, Brotherhood standing before me. The ground between us is sacred and cursed, soaked in the blood of old wars. No one speaks. No one breathes.
Then the shifting begins.
The Forsaken shift around me, bones snapping, magic crackling. Wolves with eyes like embers. Bears that move like earthquakes. Wings slicing the sky.
It starts with a growl; low, guttural, vibrating through the bones of the mountain. A Forsaken wolf drops to all fours, fur erupting, eyes blazing. A bear follows, roaring as his spine twists, claws bursting from his knuckles. Wings unfurl. Fangs gleam. The Forsaken become beasts of legend.
The Brotherhood stands across the field, rigid and righteous, their blades gleaming with borrowed power, but they answer to the call.
Their second-in-command steps forward, his mark flaring white-hot. He shifts mid-stride as his body elongates, limbs contort, and suddenly he’s a massive white lion, mane crackling with Alpha magic. Behind him, his soldiers shift in unison; wolves, panthers, hawks, serpents. Controlled. Precise. Terrifying.
The earth groans beneath us.
Kieran stands beside me, still in human form, his mark pulsing like a heartbeat. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. But I feel the dragon inside him coiled tight, waiting.
I shut my eyes, and the protection spell bursts from me, a dome of shimmering force that wraps around the Forsaken. Their marks flare in response. The Brotherhood’s magic slams against it and shatters.
I open my eyes.
