Page 56 of The Sin Binders Ascent

And we did.

Gods help us, we did. We buried our brother in a place made from collective will, a pocket of existence severed from anythingthat could stir want. No time. No thought. Just quiet. He couldn’t die,we weren’t made to,but we could silence him. Erase him from memory, from record, from fate.

Only… someone broke that silence.

And now, thirty years into Luna, with her laughter folded into all the cracks we once thought unhealable, her love tangled through each of us like a lifeline,we findhimback. Smiling. Breathing our air. Wearing our clothes. Sitting in our house.

With a golden cuff locked around her wrist.

Mine.That’s what every cell in my body is screaming. Not as ownership. As recognition. She is part of me. And I of her. What we share has been built over decades of fire and fury and survival. It’s not fragile. But this,this fucking game Blackwell’s unleashed, this gilded shackle,threatens to unravel what we’ve forged in blood.

Theo doesn’t need to touch her to break her.

He just needs time.

And now he has it.

The walk back to the house is a procession of fury. Mud cakes our boots, sticks snap beneath our feet like bones breaking in a quiet room, and every few yards, one of us mutters something sharp under his breath,usually about Theo. Riven stalks ahead of me, jaw clenched so tight I’m surprised his teeth haven’t cracked. Caspian’s hand brushes the hilt of a knife he’s not supposed to be carrying, and Elias,gods help him,keeps mumbling something about “accidental decapitation” being a legal gray area.

Theo walks like he doesn’t hear any of it. Smiling. Like there’s music only he can hear and we’re just background noise to a show already scripted. That fucking cuff gleams in the dim light, gold and warm against Luna’s wrist, as if mocking every vow we ever made to protect her from him.

Silas keeps flicking little pebbles at Theo’s ankles. None of them hit, but the message is clear. Stop walking so damn close to her. One pebble hits Luna instead and she spins around, gives him a look sharp enough to make him pout and mumble an apology that isn’t real.

“She slipped,” Theo says idly, gaze flicking to Luna like he wants her to laugh about it now, forget how her fingers shoved into his chest, how her voice cracked when she screamed at him to leave her the hell alone.

“She nearly drowned,” I snap, my voice low and sharp.

“She’s alive.” His grin is all white teeth and wicked delight. “Seems like she always is when I’m around.”

Riven stops so abruptly Silas nearly crashes into him. “Say that again,” he growls, taking a step back toward Theo.

“Don’t,” Orin warns from the rear, his voice calm but final. He hasn’t said much since the cuffs appeared. That means his mind’s working overtime, and I don’t like what that might mean.

“I didn’t say anything you don’t already think,” Theo replies, not breaking stride. “She’s stronger than all of you give her credit for. Especially you.”

That’s aimed at me. Direct. Deliberate.

My fists tighten at my sides, the old Dominion humming under my skin like a second heartbeat. I could compel him. Could twist his will until he’s apologizing in the dirt with his face buried and his ribs shattered.

But I don’t. Not yet. Because even if I did, Luna would see it. And worse,feelit.

The bond means she knows me when I lie. And when I let my power own someone. And right now, every goddamn step back to the house is me trying not to become the monster Theo already believes I am.

Caspian mutters something about flaying Theo slowly, and Silas enthusiastically suggests glitter bombs and permanent adhesive. Elias, dragging behind with an exaggerated groan, mutters, “Can’t we just throw him off a cliff and say he tripped?”

“I’d get up,” Theo calls back casually. “You’d be shocked how hard it is to kill a sin, even one you don’t like.”

Luna says nothing. But she doesn’t shake his hand off when the cuff tugs her closer. Doesn’t yell when the chain slides taut and drags her a step nearer to him than she was a breath ago.

And that’s what fucking kills me. Not that she likes him. But that she mightfeelsomething. Even a flicker. A curiosity. A question. An echo of a need he didn’t plant, but might wake up.

Because that’s what Theo is.

Not the flame. The spark. And once he’s lit, nothing stays untouched. Not even her. Especially not her. And the house, rising just ahead in the gloom, doesn’t look like a home anymore. It looks like a war zone waiting to happen.

Luna

The moment I push the door open, I regret it. My room has always been mine. A space carved out of chaos, forged between blood rites and ruined gods, and somehow... made soft. Safe. Sacred.