Page 18 of Shifting Hearts

FOUR

Raven

I pace the room, each step sharp and restless, like movement alone might keep me from unraveling.

The walls press in too close, the air thick with unfamiliar scents, smoke, leather, something wild and male.

Kieran. His presence lingers even though he’s not here, like the room remembers him better than I do.

I don’t know where I am. I don’t know him, and I don’t know if I’ve escaped one kind of hell only to land in another.

My pulse thrums in my throat, fast and uneven. I press my palms to the window, rain streaking down the glass like veins, like cracks. Outside the world is dark, wet and unknowable.

Somewhere out there, my old pack still hunts me. Aldric still believes I belong to him, even though I was exiled. He thinks that I’ll crawl back, broken and obedient, but at least I understood that kind of danger. I knew its shape. Its rules.

This place? It’s all shadows and silence. And Kieran—he’s fire wrapped in restraint, and I don’t know if he wants to protect me or burn me down.

I don’t trust him.

I don’t trust this place.

And I don’t trust the part of me that wants to.

Because deep down, something stirs. Something ancient, aching, and drawn to the heat I felt in his gaze. Like maybe this is where everything shifts. Where prophecy cracks open and power wakes.

Suddenly, I can’t breathe.

The vision clings to me like smoke; silver eyes, chanting voices, the forest that wasn’t mine but somehow was. It’s still there, curled in the back of my mind like a warning I don’t know how to read. Every time I close my eyes, I see her. The woman with my face. The one who said I was the echo.

I don’t know what that means.

I don’t know what I mean.

The room feels smaller by the second. The walls press in, the air thick with Kieran’s scent; fire, cedar, and something darker. It wraps around me like a collar, like a claim I never agreed to. I pace, faster now, heart pounding, skin prickling with something that feels too much like panic.

I’m not safe here.

I don’t know this place. I don’t know these people, and I sure as hell don’t know Kieran, no matter how carefully he looked at me, no matter how gently he caught me when I fell.

I feel like a caged animal.

Like I’ve been locked away, not for protection, but for containment.

I slam my fist against the door.

Once. Twice. Again.

“Let me out!” My voice cracks, raw and sharp. “I need air—I need to move!”

The guard outside doesn’t answer, but I hear the shift of boots. He’s there. Listening. Waiting for orders that aren’t mine to give.

I press my forehead to the door, breath ragged. My skin buzzes with energy I don’t understand, like the vision left something behind, something alive. Something awake .

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be anywhere.

But I can’t stay locked in this room while the storm inside me builds because if I do, I’m going to break something.

Or someone.

And I don’t know which scares me more.

The moment I slam my fist against the door again, I hear movement on the other side, heavy boots, a shift in the air, and then a voice I recognize too well.

“Move aside,” Kieran growls.

Not a request. A command.

The guard hesitates, just long enough to make the tension spike. I can feel it through the door; the heat rising, the pressure building like a storm about to break.

“I said move,” Kieran snaps, voice edged with fire.

There’s a shuffle, a muttered apology, and then the door swings open.

He fills the frame like a shadow made of flame; tall, broad, eyes burning gold, and jaw locked tight. His presence hits me like a wave, and for a second, I forget how to breathe.

“You’re pacing like you’re ready to tear the walls down,” he says, voice low but sharp. “You want out?”

I nod, chest heaving. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know you, and I don’t know if I’m safer here or back with the ones who tried to break me.”

His gaze doesn’t waver. Doesn’t soften, but something flickers behind it, recognition, maybe. Or restraint.

“You’re not a prisoner,” he replies. “But you’re not ready to walk out that gate either.”

I step forward, defiant. “Then what am I?”

He looks at me like he’s trying to decide whether to tell me the truth or protect me from it.

“You’re the reason everything’s about to change,” he says quietly. “And I don’t think either of us is ready for what that means.”