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“And that’s the fucking problem,” I snap, sitting up too fast, heart slamming into ribs that ache for reasons deeper than pain. “She’shalfway mineand I’m a broken fucking man with Branwen’s fingerprints still pressed into my spine. You really want me inside her when I can still taste another woman’s laugh in my mouth?”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t mock me. Just watches me with those maddeningly perceptive eyes. “You want the truth?”

“No,” I say.

“Too bad. You’re getting it.”

He sits up, legs folded, his ridiculous curls sticking out in every direction like static has taken permanent residence in his skull. “You’re scared. Not of hurting Luna. You’ve already done that. You’re scared ofwhat happens if she forgives you.If she lets you in. You’re scared that you’ll love her, and you’ll fuck it up anyway.”

I stare at him, mouth dry, throat raw with silence. Because he’s right. Gods, he’s right.

“I don’t deserve her,” I whisper.

“None of us do,” he says with a shrug. “That’s the gig. We’re Sins, remember? You’re Lust. You don’t get clean. You don’t get pure. But maybe you can bechosen,and that’s something.”

I run both hands through my hair, trembling from the weight of want and revulsion curling like smoke in my chest. “She’s too good.”

Silas snorts. “She stabbed Riven once, remember?”

“She didn’t mean to.”

“And you didn’t mean to stab her.”

I drop my head into my hands, shaking. “You’re not helping.”

“You’re not listening.”

His voice softens, not mocking now. Not Silas the prankster or chaos incarnate. Just Silas, the idiot with his feet on my bed and some unshakeable loyalty tucked beneath all his jokes.

“She’s going to choose you, Caspian. Even if it kills her a little. That’s what she does. She breaks herself open for us. And if you let that happen withoutmeeting her there,then yeah, I’ll be the first one to help Ambrose shove a blade through your chest. But until then? You sit here. You bleed. You ache. And when she comes to you, youshow up.”

My chest caves under the words. My lungs rebel.

And I hate him for how badly I want to believe he’s right.

Silas taps my foot with his. “Now scoot over. I’m taking a nap. Your guilt is cozy.”

I shove at him, but he flops sideways like a limp dog and grins at the ceiling. And for a second—just one—the weight lets up.

I don’t think I can do it.

It sits in my throat like glass, like something that’ll shred me open if I say it out loud. So I don’t. I breathe around it. Swallow it down. Let it choke me instead.

Because it’s not about the act—not really. It’s about the demand. The expectation. The fucking inevitability of it.

I’m Lust. That’s the whole deal, right? The god of sex. The temptation. The tease. The Sin who always says yes, even when the world’s on fire and the only thing left to do is burn. I’m supposed towantthis. I’m supposed to take pleasure in it. Slide right back into it like nothing ever happened. Like my skin hasn’t been branded by a woman who made me crawl.

But the truth? The truth is I don’t even know if I’m still whole. I don’t know if I’m capable of giving Luna anything that isn’t corrupted by everything Branwen took from me.

The others are too polite to say it, but I can see it in the way they glance at me when they think I’m not looking. Like I’m fraying at the edges. Like there’s something wrong with me now. And they’re right.

Because when I think about touching Luna—really touching her, not just teasing, not just the old games we used to play—my entire body revolts. Not out of disgust. Not out of rejection.

Out of fear.

Fear that I’ll mess it up. That I’ll lose myself again. That the parts Branwen twisted and broke and rewired into something shameful will surface when I’m inside someone I actuallycareabout.

And gods, I want her. I want her so much it gnaws at me, curls up in my ribcage like hunger that never goes away. But wanting her doesn’t fix what’s broken. It doesn’t erase the feel of another woman’s command in my blood, or the way I’ve started flinching when people get too close.