Page 70 of The Sin Binders Ascent

And I’m good with it.

Mostly.

I’ve never minded that Orin’s the one she turns to when she needs sense, or that Riven’s the one she bleeds for when everything comes undone. Caspian’s the devil on her tongue and Ambrose is the monster she cradles like he’s made of softer things. Silas has always been her chaos, her distraction,and Lucien… Lucien’s the crown she never bows to but still somehow rules with.

We’re all wrapped around her like silk and knives. And somehow, it works.

But Theo?

No.

There’s something wrong about him. Off. The way he looks at her isn’t like we do. We look at her like she’s ours. He looks at her like she’s his punishment, and his reward. Like consuming her wouldfixsomething inside him.

And yeah, fine, I’m jealous. I’ll admit it in the privacy of my damn skull.

Not of the others. We’ve bled together. We’ve burned for her in the same storms. There’s a kind of sacred agony in sharing someone like Luna, someone who can hold the seven darkest cravings ever made and still walk like she’s untouchable.

But Theo? He wasn’t there. He didn’t earn this. He’s not bound to her by thirty years of bruised love and battered devotion. He didn’t watch her destroy herself to keep us alive. He didn’t learn her sharpness, her softness, the way she unravels when you kiss her just beneath her jaw.

He just shows up,with his smug smile and that lazy voice, like he’s already tasted her, like we’re all just place-holders until she figures out what she wants, and we’re supposed towhat? Accept it?

Fuck no.

I don’t trust him. Not with her. Not with the way he looks at her like he’s starving and she’s the last thing on earth he’d ruin himself for.

And that’s the part that cuts the worst. Because I know that look. It’s the one I gave her when I first realized she wasn’t just a bond or a shared fantasy, butit. The only thing that ever made me want to try. To stay. Togive a shit.

And if Theo feels that too, if he’s capable of it, I don’t know what happens to the rest of us.

So yeah.

Maybe it’s petty. Maybe it’s hypocritical. But I don’t want to share her withhim. Because I don’t think he’ll stop at sharing.

And gods help us, I think he’ll make herwantnot to.

Luna

The knife glints in my hand as I quarter the tomatoes with surgical precision, each slice sharper than necessary. The cutting board is a war zone of fresh herbs and aggression, and Theo’s breath is entirely too close to my ear.

“Is that rosemary or the crushed remains of your last victim?” he asks, voice dragging low and amused, like I’m some kind of charming murderess he’s hoping will stab him next.

“Keep talking,” I murmur, grabbing a handful of basil andnotthinking about how his chain tugs at my wrist every time he leans in, “and I’ll add your tongue to the ragù.”

“Oh no,” he drawls, inching closer, because he has no sense of self-preservation, “don’t tempt me. I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to be on the menu.”

“You’d be overcooked and underseasoned,” I deadpan, slamming the pot lid with more force than necessary.

I’m making rigatoni alla Genovese, not because I want to, but because the guys love it, and maybe if I feed them something good enough, they’ll stop growling every time Theo breathes in my direction. I dice shallots, finely, methodically, like they wronged me in a past life.

Theo, of course, has made himself at home. He’s perched on the counter like some feral prince, picking at the loaf of bread I had explicitly told himnotto touch. His shirt is unbuttoned. Onpurpose. Because modesty is for people who weren’t cursed with being carved from every dark dream I’ve ever tried to forget. His smirk widens when I glance at his chest, which, okay, yes, isobnoxiouslynice, all lean lines and sinful definition.

“You’re flustered,” he says.

“I’m holding a knife.”

“That only makes it hotter.”

I stab a tomato.