Page 8

Not with her.
I exhale slowly, pushing the thoughts away, forcing myself back into the present.
The Hollow is shifting again, the landscape distorting at the edges. It is reacting to her, to us, sensing the imbalance we bring into it. We need to move quickly.
Luna must feel it too, because she speaks without looking at me. “We’re getting closer.”
I glance at her, at the way she’s still feeling for the bond, still grasping at that connection. The part of me that has spent millennia surviving through caution wants to tell her to stop. That she is reaching into things she does not understand. That she is opening doors that cannot be closed.
But another part of me, one I have never listened to, wants to let her keep reaching. Because I need to know what she is. I need to know if she is the last. Or if she is just another in a line of inevitable failures.
I keep my voice steady. “Then lead us.”
She closes her eyes, breathes deep, and steps forward.
She moves ahead of us, her stride unwavering, the sharp cut of her silhouette illuminated in the Hollow’s unnatural half-light. She moves with the kind of quiet certainty that wasn’t therebefore. She’s trusting something, the bond, maybe, or some instinct that neither of us can feel the way she does.
Which means I should be focused on the path she’s leading us down. On the shifting terrain, the way the Hollow keeps warping just beyond the edges of my vision. On the weight of power in the air, coiling like an unseen threat beneath our feet.
But I’m not.
Because Elias is watching her. Not in a careful way. Not in a way that’s concerned. He’s watching her like a man who enjoys the view.
His head tilts slightly, gaze drifting downward, lips parting just enough to let out a slow, quiet hum of appreciation. He doesn’t bother hiding it. He never does. But it’s the kind of look that says he isn’t just admiring, he’s imagining.
Something sharp flickers in my chest. Something that isn’t new, but is still just as unwelcome.
I don’t mean to follow his gaze.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.
And fuck, she moves differently now. More deliberate. More aware of herself, even if she doesn’t realize it. The sway of her hips is subtle, not exaggerated, but enough to hold attention. Enough to make my jaw tighten as I take in the shape of her. The dip of her waist, the curve just below it, the way her fitted clothes stretch with each step, her body a study in defiant elegance.
Elias exhales, a low, knowing chuckle. “I knew you’d look.”
My gaze snaps to him, sharp as a blade. “Shut up.”
He grins, slow and pleased. “You always look.”
I don’t respond, because anything I say will be wrong.
Elias tilts his head, silver eyes glinting with amusement. “You ever wonder if she knows?”
I don’t dignify that with an answer either.
Luna still doesn’t understand what she is to us. What she could be. She’s only just beginning to grasp the weight of the bond, the way it threads through all of us, dragging her deeper into something she won’t escape.
But she doesn’t feel it the way we do. She isn’t Sin. She doesn’t know what it means to want the way we do. To crave with no limits. No morality. No restraint.
If she did, she would never have turned her back on us. Not in a place like this. Not when there are two of us watching.
Elias smirks, the picture of lazy amusement. “You should tell her.”
I exhale slowly, leveling him with a look. “And you should stop talking before I rip your throat out.”
He grins wider. “Ah, there it is.”