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A ghost of a smile pushes at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it. I keep my back to her. Keep my grip on the coffee mug tight. "Should’ve eaten him. Saved us all the drama.”

She laughs. Not a small one either—a real one. Bright, warm, too alive for this place or this hour or this body I’m trapped in.

“Imissedyour jokes,” she teases. “Even when they’re violent and threatening small animals.”

“I’m consistent,” I reply flatly. “That counts for something.”

I can hear her step deeper into the kitchen, barefoot probably, because Luna never quite adjusts to the luxury she deserves. There’s the soft scrape of wood under her heel, the air shifting with her nearness. I hate that I notice all of it. I hate more that Iwantto.

I finally glance over my shoulder—and I’m not prepared. Wet hair. Skin still flushed from sleep. One of Elias’s oversized shirts, threadbare and falling off her shoulder like it’s never learned the definition ofmodesty. My jaw tightens. My hands stay locked around the ceramic, as if that’s the only thing tethering me to this plane of existence.

She looks at me like I’m not terrifying. Like I’m not the problem.

“Lucien…” she begins, and gods, the way she says my name—it’s reverent, careless, sinful.

I lift the cup to my mouth so I don’t have to respond.

“I like seeing you like this,” she says softly. “Here. With us. It feels… I don’t know. More real now.”

Her words hit something sharp inside me, something that’s trying to root itself and grow where nothing should be growing. I should tell her to leave. I should throw her out of the room before she says anything else that twists me into something unfamiliar.

Instead, I murmur, “Go back to bed, Luna.”

“I’m not tired,” she says immediately. “And neither are you.”

Her eyes are dark in the dim light, unreadable. I don’t know what she wants. Maybe she doesn’t either. But she’s here. And the pull humming under my skin, ancient and newly awakened, coils tighter with every second she doesn’t move away.

“I made coffee,” I say finally, the only safe sentence I can offer.

She steps closer. “Make me some?”

Her voice is too innocent. Or maybe it’s not innocent at all. Maybe she knows exactly what she’s doing, stepping into my world and asking me to give her something as mundane as caffeine, when all I want is to give her things I don’t have a name for.

I pour her a cup. Set it on the counter. Don’t look at her when she reaches for it. But I feel her fingers brush mine. Deliberate. She doesn’t pull away. And for one brutal, fleeting second—I don’t either.

The knife sits behind her like a dare. It’s not large. Not ceremonial. Just a clean, steel blade with a polished handle and no sentimental origin—perfect in its anonymity. Easy to forget. Easy to use. One cut through her palm and I’d be bound to her. Fully. Irrevocably. My eyes stay glued to it, to the sharp glint of the edge catching the morning light, to the echo of every bond I’ve ever denied rising in my throat like blood.

One slice. One drop. That’s all it would take. One sacred offering pressed into my hand and the bond would lock betweenus. The last sin bound. The circle closed. Six others already wrapped in her warmth. And now the bond claws at the inside of my ribs,minescreaming from beneath centuries of restraint.

She doesn’t notice where I’m looking. She keeps talking, voice light, half-laughing. “I’m really glad we’re all back. That things feel like they’re… working again.”

Working. As if I’m not seconds away from losing every shred of command I’ve ever had over myself.

“I mean,” she continues, smiling, pushing her hair over her shoulder like she doesn’t realize the effect, like she doesn’t know I’m fucking unraveling. “After everything in the Hollow, after you and I—well, I didn’t think it’d be like this. Comfortable. Easy.”

Easy. Nothing about her is easy. Nothing about this is comfortable. The way she stands across from me, barefoot and smiling, talking about peace like it isn’t driving me mad. Her magic sings to mine. Her soul’s orbit is dragging me closer by the second.

My hand curls around the edge of the counter. I keep my body still, but the pulse at my throat is a war drum. My gaze flicks again—knife. Her hand. Knife. Her pulse fluttering beneath soft skin. My pull craving that cut like it’s a kiss.

Gods, I’m shaking. I never shake.

“You okay?” she asks, and I hate how sincere she sounds. Like she’d understand. Like she wouldn’t flinch if I told her that I want to taste her blood, bind myself to her forever, give up the last of my free will just to finally have what the others already do.

“You look pale,” she says, stepping closer, concern pinching her brows.

Don’t.

“Lucien?”