Page 89
Story: The Sin Binder's Destiny
I glance over at her without loosening my fingers from hers. She keeps her eyes forward, chin tilted like she’s forcing herself to sound casual, but I can feel the weight of the question coiling inside her. “What you said when I was running away… about loving me properly. Did you mean that?”
I stop walking. The world hushes around us—the Hollow’s wild, restless breath slowing for just a moment as I turn to face her. She tries to keep her expression even, but it’s unraveling at the edges, her hurt still stitched into the curve of her mouth, her eyes too careful.
“Yes,” I say, simply at first, like the word alone could hold the gravity of what I mean. But it isn’t enough. She deserves more than that. “I meant every damned word.”
Her throat bobs, but she doesn’t look away. So I keep going, because she’s never going to understand if I don’t tell her the truth—the whole truth.
“I’ve loved you since the moment you walked into that academy, chin up, defiant, mouthing off to Lucien like you had no idea what kind of monsters you’d stepped into the den of,” Imurmur, my voice low, measured. “You were reckless, arrogant, and too bright to belong to a place like that. But you belonged to us the second you walked in, and I knew it.”
Her lips part like she wants to argue, but I don’t let her.
“I didn’t say anything then because you didn’t need another man circling you like a vulture. You needed a friend, Luna. You needed someone who wasn’t trying to own you or drag you under.” My thumb traces along her knuckles as I breathe out a laugh, dark and rough at the edges. “And I knew, if I so much as hinted at what I wanted from you, I wouldn’t be able to stop.”
I lean in just a little, not enough to crowd her, just enough to let her feel how serious this is. “So I stayed patient. I watched you choose them one by one—Elias, Silas, Riven—and I never asked you to choose me. Because I wanted to be the one who waited, the one who loved you without asking for anything back.”
Her eyes flick to mine, too wide, too soft, and she looks like she’s about to fall apart all over again.
I smile then—slow, devastating, gentle. “You’ve spent your whole life with people trying to own you, Luna. I’d rather burn than be one of them.”
Her steps falter, and she glances at me out of the corner of her eye like she’s fighting herself. Her voice, when it comes, is soft and clipped, but it doesn’t hide the flush crawling up her throat. “What I said about your abs… was a lie. They’re more than average.”
I smile slowly, deliberately, savoring it like a sin on my tongue. “I know.”
She glares at me, predictably, beautifully, like she’s trying to claw the words back, but I don’t let her. I tilt my head, eyes dragging over her like a slow caress. “You’re undressing me with your eyes now.”
“I am not!” she snaps, a little too fast, the flush spreading all the way to the tips of her ears.
“Yes, you are, little star,” I murmur, voice silk-wrapped steel. “You’ve been staring since I took my jacket off.”
Her chin juts up, obstinate and irritated and absolutely enchanted. “Am not.”
“You keep saying that,” I say, falling into step beside her, my hand brushing the small of her back with infuriating ease, “but the color on your cheeks says otherwise.”
She huffs, muttering something under her breath about how impossible I am and starts walking faster, as if she can outrun how visible she is to me. As if I haven’t spent centuries reading people far better at hiding their sins than her.
“It’s perfectly acceptable to love my abs, Luna,” I call after her, my voice a low purr laced with amusement. “I think you might want me to rush through this entire courtship nonsense just so you can finally get your hands on me.”
She whirls around briefly, walking backward, cheeks burning, eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I give her a slow, deliberate once-over, letting my eyes linger too long, because she’s baiting me now whether she realizes it or not. “You’re the one imagining me naked, little star. I’m just accommodating your fantasies.”
She huffs again, turning on her heel and practically stomping ahead of me now, like she can walk away from the fact that she’s smiling despite herself, that she keeps looking over her shoulder just to see if I’m watching her.
And I am. Always.
The trees thin in the distance, shadows giving way to the faint shimmer of cathedral spires clawing at the horizon—the spiral they all fear, the one she’s agreed to return to with us. I let her walk ahead, let her pretend she isn’t smiling and flustered, whileI tuck my hands behind my back and follow her, patient and deliberate, like I have been since the beginning.
Because she can run, and she can lie, and she can spit venom at every one of us—but I know how this ends.
And it ends with her in my arms.
I let the silence stretch between us, let her stew in the weight of what’s already passed between us, the unspoken promise humming in the air like a storm about to break. Then, casually, deliberately, I say, “Or perhaps I should tell you my fantasies about you.”
She spins, walking backward now, her eyes sharp, suspicious, her lips parted like she wasn’t expecting me to throw that gauntlet down so openly. “You’re not supposed to say things like that.”
I arch a brow, slow and lazy, savoring the flush creeping up her throat. “And why not?”
Her gaze flicks away, then back again, guarded but curious. “Because we’re not sleeping together yet.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89 (Reading here)
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268