Caspian snorts. “You’re a walking HR violation.”

“And yet,” I grin, “still her favorite sin.”

“Absolutely not,” Luna mutters through laughter. “Try again. No touching each other—”

“Too late,” I cut in. “I’ve claimed Elias. He’s mine now. Look how well he perches.”

Elias elbows me in the gut. “I will literally throw myself out the window.”

“Do it hot,” I whisper.

Behind me, Ambrose lets out a long-suffering sigh and angles himself toward Luna like he’s the moody lead in a noir film. Of course he nails it. Somehow the bastard makes brooding look like foreplay. Caspian’s lying back now, draped across the armrest like a painting, and evenRivenleans into it—just barely. His arms cross tighter, his scowl deepens, but the cut of his jaw sharpens into something intentional. Purposeful. Posing withoutposing.

She takes another photo.

“This one’s going on the wall,” Luna announces, delighted.

“The wall?” Elias echoes, alarmed. “Like—a physical wall? People have to look at it?”

“You’ve seen yourself, right?” I ask him. “You’re welcome, world.”

Luna steps in closer now, angling the phone down slightly. “Now smolder.”

I’m ready.

I tip my head back, part my lips, and make the face I imagine I’d have right before kissing her neck and proposing something entirely illegal. Ambrose watches me like he’s considering homicide. Riven mutters something about someone’s “soul leaking out through their grin.”

“Okay, okay,” Luna laughs, barely holding the phone still. “That’s enough.”

But now they’reinto it.

Caspian slides to the floor, crouched like a sin-stained predator. “How about a candid?” he says to no one in particular. Elias flips his hair like a shampoo ad gone rogue. Even Riven subtly turns his face toward the light. My gods. I’ve infected them.

I lean toward Luna, stage-whispering, “Want one where I bite Elias?”

“No!” Elias says too fast.

“Yes,” I say louder.

“No,” Riven growls.

“Yes,” Caspian agrees, far too amused.

Ambrose says nothing, but I see him mouthingdo itjust to stir shit.

“Guys—” Luna tries.

Too late. I lunge.

Elias shrieks. The couch implodes. All our limbs collapse into each other in a pile of sin and pride and bare skin and chaos. Phones go flying. Caspian yelps. Ambrose curses in languages no one but Orin probably remembers. Riven growls loud enough to shake the floorboards.

Luna’s laughing so hard she’s crying.

And me? I’m in the center of the wreckage, still half on Elias, shirtless, grinning so wide it might split me open.

“Best. Photo. Shoot. Ever.”

Caspian

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