Page 181 of Shifting Hearts 1
She would run. And I would let her.
Because that’s what we always did.
But, gods, I didn’t want to.
I wanted to hold her down and tell her she wasn’t leaving without letting mefightfor her.
I wanted to scream that I was worth choosing, even if I wasn’t.
I wanted to break this cathedral open and pull her name from every stone until she turned back around.
Instead, I stayed kneeling in the ash and quiet, my heart hammering behind bruised ribs.
The visions hadn’t stopped, not entirely. Little echoes clung to the edges of my vision — glimmers of her oath knife slicing her palm, blood dripping onto the stone altar. Her younger self weeping into her sleeve in the dark. Her shaking as she whispered my name when no one else could hear her.
And beneath it all, the constant beat of her heart as she chose me, again and again, even when itkilledher.
I didn’t deserve it. Not even close.
But the magic didn’t care what we deserved, or wanted, no… it only cared that we were fated. Thread and bone. Guardian and knife. Wolf and witch. I didn’t dare think of the other half of her. Thefeypart that had my wolf wanting to tear her limb from limb, because that’s what wolves did to fey. Not that witches were any better. They’d made me after all. Wyrd Wolves… together with the dark fey, we’d been made… regular wolf shifters taken as children. Maybe that was no better than what the Dark Court had done to Eris. I didn’t know, I couldn’t. Dreams… visions, were far from the starkness of reality, and I hadn’t been there.
I shifted, letting my head fall back against the pillar behind me. Cool rock kissed my spine.
There’d be consequences for this. I could feel them already circling. Magic like that didn’t happen without cost — and neither did defiance.
I had tasted her, known her,claimedher — even if we’d never speak that truth aloud ever again, only now the magic had a tether. Something real. Something binding. Something made of flesh and bone.
My threads still hadn’t faded completely. They glowed faintly under my skin — not the usual tight red lines of protection and prophecy, but looser, pulsing strands thatached. As if they mourned her leaving. As if they wanted to follow.
I clenched my fists and tried to will them still.
She wasn’t mine to keep. I’d made peace with that long ago. Or maybe I’d just convinced myself I had, but gods help me — in that cathedral, in her arms, I’d let myself believe otherwise.
The wind stirred outside — the first breath of movement in what felt like hours. Dust shifted in the doorway where she’d disappeared. Just enough to make me lift my head. Just enough to make hope rise, uninvited and cruel.
But it wasn’t her.
Only the night. And the ghosts we’d stirred.
I closed my eyes.
And for the first time in years, I didn’t pray to the gods for strength.
I prayed that she’d come back.
Even if I knew deep down she wouldn’t.
SEVEN
Eris
The cold hit me first. Not the wind — the wind was nothing. I’d trained in ice fields and cursed deserts, stood knee-deep in blighted snow as my blade warmed with enemy blood. No, this cold was the kind that came after touch. After warmth. The kind that lived under your skin and whispered: You left again. And this time, you might not come back.
I walked until I couldn’t hear the cathedral behind me. Until the pulse of Brannan’s threads — still tangled through my veins — quieted to a distant ache.
But they didn’t fade, not completely. They wouldn’t. Never again.
I pressed my fingers against the dreambone necklace at my throat. It was too warm. Too aware. It pulsed against my skin in time with the ragged beat of my heart. A warning. A countdown.
