Page 27

Because he knows.
“I fucked another woman,” I hiss, and there’s no seduction in it now. Just venom. Just the rot I can’t scrub out. “Not because I wanted to. Not because Ichoseto. But because Branwen commanded it. Because the bond twisted me inside out until the only thing I could think about washowto please her. And I did. Over and over and over.”
My voice breaks.
I don’t care.
I meet his eyes with everything I have left, every jagged shard. “How does Luna forgivethat?”
Ambrose exhales slowly, almost like he’s considering the weight of it—like he’s tasting the edges of my ruin. Then, finally, he speaks.
“She won’t forgive you because you were weak,” he says. “She’ll forgive you because she’s already seen what strength does to the rest of us.”
It’s not comfort. It’s a death sentence. Because I know what he means. The others—all strength, all fury, all conviction—they’re shattering in front of her. Riven’s unraveling. Lucien’s barely keeping himself from cutting the bond with his own soul. And me? I was supposed to be the easy one. The flirt. The tease. The fun.
Now I’m just what’s left after Lust gets stripped of its spark.
“I don’t want her to look at me andseeit,” I whisper.
“She already does,” Ambrose replies. “And she still chooses you.”
My laugh this time is quieter. More dangerous.
Because that?
That might be worse than her walking away.
There’s a rule. Carved deeper than magic, older than even Orin’s fabled patience. A commandment we never spoke aloud, not even in the blood-soaked corridors of the first sanctum. It lived in us like instinct. Like hunger. When there’s a Sin Binder among us—we don’t fuck around.
And I broke it.
I broke it in the worst fucking way.
It doesn’t matter that Branwen owns my body. Doesn’t matter that the bond snaps its fingers and I move. That she moans my name like I’m some divine offering she’s owed. That her nails draw blood and her breath is fire and her pleasure is a leash that coils around my ribs andtightens.
None of that matters.
Because Iknew.
And I still let it happen.
The rule doesn’t just exist to protect the Binder—it exists to protectus. We don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t let ourselves be used that way when a Binder is among us, because it fractures the bond. Itweakensus. And that’s the part Branwen knew. That’s the part she exploited.
Because now I’m cracked down the middle. Half of me still pulsing for her against my will. The other half—The other half wants to crawl back to Luna and beg. But I don’t. I won’t.
Because Lust doesn’t beg.
And because I’ve already tainted everything between us with the stench of someoneelse.
I close my eyes. Press my palm flat to the stone, like I can steady the tilt of my soul with touch alone.
“She’s going to look at me and seeher,” I murmur.
Ambrose doesn’t answer this time. He doesn’t need to. The silenceagreeswith me.
I let out a breath that feels like it’s been caged in my ribs for a century.
“I’ve betrayed Luna.”