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“That was slow,” he says.

And then he’s gone. Leaving me flushed, fucked, and still smiling. Because I made him lose control. And he’ll never admit it.

The sound is faint at first—just a catch in the silence.

It takes me a second to realize what it is. I sit up in bed, the sheets falling to my hips, skin still warm from dreams I can’tremember. The sob is muffled. Masculine. The kind that isn’t meant to be heard. And the second I recognize it, Iknow.

Caspian.

He hasn’t been okay—not really. Not since the pillar, not since Branwen sunk her claws into his magic and left her scent inside his skin. And now, after what the circle said—afterAmbrose—he’s fraying.

The hallway is cold under my bare feet, and I don’t bother with slippers or a robe. I don’t knock. I don’t ask. I just slip through his door and into the dark.

He’s curled away from me on the bed, blanket half-kicked off, still in his shirt from earlier, collar open, throat exposed. His breathing stutters when I sit on the edge. I don’t speak. I just climb in.

The second my body presses to his, he freezes. Then he exhales, a sharp, wrecked sound like something inside him just snapped loose.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmurs, voice low and rough like he’s been swallowing gravel.

“You didn’t.”

I curl behind him, arm sliding around his waist, anchoring him. He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t move. Just lets meholdhim. He’s all contradictions—heat under my palm, cold in the curve of his spine. Lust incarnate with no desire to touch. And yet, he lets me in. Healwayslets me in.

“You okay?” I ask, though we both know the answer.

He huffs a laugh, the sound twisted with something that tastes like heartbreak. “Do I look okay?”

I nuzzle into the space between his shoulder blades, breathing him in. “You never look okay. You look like sin with too much mouth.”

“Flattering.”

“I’m known for my charm.”

His hand lifts, finding mine where I’ve pressed it to his chest. He laces our fingers together. It’s intimate. Bare. No flirtation. No teasing. Just Caspian, unraveling one thread at a time.

“He can’t die,” he says, voice cracking at the edge. “I know Ambrose—he’ll do it. He’ll fucking do it and smile while he goes.”

I close my eyes. “He won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

Silence stretches. He’s trying to hold it together, I can feel it in the way his chest rises sharp and shallow. In the way his thumb rubs over mine like he needs tomoveor he’ll disappear.

“There were others,” he says suddenly. “Other Sin Binders. I didn’t see them when I was there… but what if they’re buried under it? What if they’retrappedwith her? Just… waiting to be swallowed.”

His voice cracks again, and this time it cuts straight through me.

“I didn’t eventhinkabout them. I was so focused on Branwen—on surviving—I didn’t wonder if I was alone.”

“You were never alone,” I whisper.

“I don’t mean—” he breathes in, shakily. “I know you pulled me out. I know. But Luna, if that’s where they all went—if that place is a graveyard for your kind… what the fuck are we doing binding you? What if every step is leading you to the same fate?”

“It’s not.”

“You can’tknowthat.”