Page 87 of Shifting Hearts

FOUR

Brannan

I should’ve killed her the moment she said my name.

Eris. The name tasted like poison in my mouth, all sweetness and rot. She was a slip of bone and shadow, the kind of beautiful that made men die stupid deaths. And I wasn’t immune. I felt it — the pull of fate like a scythe behind my ribs, a promise soaked in blood and sealed in ash.

But I saw her kill me.

And that… that changed things.

I’ve hunted witches before. Fey too, when they wandered too far into Wyrd lands, thought the trees wouldn’t whisper about it. But her? She’s not a trespasser. She was a riddle tied to my marrow. And when I slept, I dreamt of bone dust and her voice calling me to die.

So, I tracked her.

Not because of the bond. That thing was a curse, a cruel trick of fate. No, I tracked her because I knew what she was. I knew what she was going to do — or already had done, in another future, another thread. I wouldn’t let it come to pass. I couldn’t.

The Wyrd sang louder the closer I got. Her scent — blood and burnt herbs, old soil, and wet stone — lingered like a bruise on the air. She's warded, clever. But not clever enough.

I found her kneeling by the river, slicing a strip from her own palm. The blood dripped onto something pale and small in her cupped hand — a milk tooth. Warded in sigils I didn’t recognise.

My breath caught. She’s making something. Not a weapon. A protection spell.

Against me?

Good.

Let her try.

I stepped from the trees without a sound, and still, she stiffened. Turned her head slowly, like she already knew I was there. Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak. The wind rushed between us like a third presence — thick with rain, heavy with dread.

I drew closer, teeth bared in something that isn't quite a smile. “You’re not very good at hiding.”

She closed her hand around the tooth. “I wasn’t trying to.”

“Then you’re even worse at surviving than I gave you credit for.”

A bitter laugh, spilled past her lips. “Are you here to kill me?”

“I should. You saw what I saw.” I close the distance, towering over her. “You. Me. My death. Your hands.”

“Dreams lie.”

“Not when it comes to the Wyrd.”

She flinched.

But then something shifted, and the sky above cracked open, thunder rolling like a warning bell. Rain comes down, cold, and insistent. Eris stood, and her hand brushed mine by accident or fate — it’s hard to tell — but we both recoiled.

The tooth. Whatever spell she wove around it — burned — like iron on raw skin.

I cursed. She hissed. And the tooth clattered to the ground between us, steaming in the dirt.

“What the fuck did you do?” I snarl.

Her voice trembled. “I bound it.”

Lightning forked across the sky. In the flash, her eyes looked too old. Like they remember the shape of my bones before I was born. I shuddered, because maybe she did.

“We need shelter,” she muttered, as she drew her cloak tighter. “There’s an old ruin near the ridge.”

I spat into the dirt. “I don’t shelter with witches.”

Her mouth curved up into a humourless smile. “You’ll want to tonight.”

I should let her go. Turn away. Let the storm tear her to pieces, but the Wyrd is tightening around us like a noose. It's almost as if something wanted us there, at the ruins... it called .

I followed her.

Not because I trust her, but because I trust the Wyrd more.

The ruins were a cathedral to the forgotten gods.

The crumbling stones are slick with purple-green moss, the colours sickly and unnatural, like decay frozen in bloom.

I can’t help but think how fitting the location is, given I’m not alone.

Had I been, I wondered if the moss would have been more alive than dead.

The door groans on its hinges when it's pushed open, eliciting a sound that’s reminiscent of a human scream, as we step inside.

I shook the water from my coat, droplets spattering the dirt floor and stirring up the scent of damp earth. The cathedral breathed around us—every gust of wind through the cracks like the sigh of something long dead.

Eris peeled off her cloak, the fabric heavy with rain.

Pale arms emerged, carved with bone-coloured runes that caught what little light there was.

They seemed to shift if I looked too long, as though the ink remembered pain.

The wound in her palm was still bleeding, crimson sliding down to her wrist, but she tucked it quickly into her sleeve, hiding it like a secret she wasn’t ready to share.

“This place is Wyrd-bound,” she whispered.

She was right, of course. I could feel it. The air wasn’t just heavy—it thrummed. Old magic, bone deep magic. Not light, not dark, something older than either. My wolf stirred, pacing beneath my skin, claws raking, teeth bared, desperate to be loosed into this wild current of power.

“There’s a ward on the threshold,” she said, voice low but steady. “Once we cross it, we will have sealed the rite.”

A growl clawed its way out of my throat. “What rite?”

Her mouth quirked, not quite a smile. “Sanctuary.”

I tested the door with my shoulder, but it didn’t budge. The hinges screamed, the storm outside shrieked louder, rattling the stones like a warning.

Eris tilted her head, watching me. “If either of us tries to leave before dawn, we break the pact.”

“And?”

“And the cathedral will destroy us.”

I slammed a hand against the doorframe. Wyrd fire erupted across the stone, veins of light spider-webbing outward. The scent of ozone filled my lungs.

Trapped, in a ruined church, with the last person alive I wanted to be with.

Fucking perfect. If I didn’t know better, I’d say fate planned it this way.

The hours stretched like sinew, thin and unyielding.

Shadows crawled across the cathedral, bending with every flicker of lightning that slashed through the broken roof.

She sat across the chamber by a low altar, her back pressed to the wall as if she drew strength from the stones.

Her eyes never left me. And I never looked away from her.

We circled each other in silence, not with steps but with stares. The air between us crackled, heavy with all the things left unsaid. It pressed in, thick as the storm outside that waged war outside.

I shifted restlessly, the stone beneath me digging into my palms. “Tell me the truth,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. “What are you?”

She lifted her head slowly, as if weighing how much truth I deserved. “Half bone witch. Half dark fey. I told you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Her smile curved, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “I know.”

The words struck deeper than I wanted them to. I rose and stalked closer, each step stirring the dust on the floor, the urge to tear through her wards crawling beneath my skin like fire. “You swore an oath,” I said, low, dangerous. “To kill someone. Years ago.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t know it was me?”

“I didn’t remember.” Her voice sharpened, edged with something brittle. “The court fed me lies. You think I wouldn’t have fought it if I had?”

I stopped close enough to see the faint blue veins running beneath her pale skin, close enough to reach out and close the distance between us. My hand twitched, but I didn’t touch her. Couldn’t.

“You dreamed of killing me too,” she whispered.

“I dreamt of a lot of things.” My voice rasped, rough as gravel. “Some of them worse than death.”

Her gaze flicked down to my mouth, lingering there for a heartbeat too long before she looked away. “The bond hasn’t broken.”

“No.”

“Even though you tried to reject it.”

I leaned in, my breath brushing the curve of her ear, close enough to feel the tension coil in her shoulders. “You want me to finish the job now, Eris? Snap your neck before fate tries again?”

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink.

Instead, she whispered, steady as stone, “If you were going to kill me, Brannan… you would have done it already.”

And she was right, and I hated her for that.

The storm beat harder against the cathedral. Thunder shakes the walls, and something ancient stirs beneath the floor.

She laid the milk tooth on the altar. The runes shimmer. Her blood still stains the grooves.

“I didn’t mean to mark you,” she murmurs. “You were a boy. Wild, gold-eyed. You smiled at me. And I hated you for it.”

I move behind her, drawn despite myself.

“Then why did you make the oath?”

Her voice breaks. “Because the court wanted a weapon. Because I didn’t think fate would be so cruel.”

I reach out. My fingers hover just above her shoulder. She turned — slowly, deliberate.

The bond thrums between us like a heartbeat and when our lips meet, it’s not gentle.

It was war.

Teeth. Tongues. A growl that’s half mine, half hers. Her fingers claw into my shirt, pulling me closer. My hands find her waist, her throat, her hips. She tastes like blood and lightning, like ruin and promise. I want her. Gods help me, I need her.

But it’s not enough.

Not yet.

Because when I touch her skin, I feel it again — the moment of my death, echoing beneath her heartbeat. A thread tightening.

I break the kiss.

Gasping.

Bleeding, somewhere I can’t see.

She stared at me like I’m the only monster that’s ever made her want to die.

And maybe I am.