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And then her fingers brush mine under the table. Light. Barely there. But it shuts me up mid-sentence. I look at her again, and she’s not smiling anymore—not fully. There’s something else in her eyes now. Something that says she’s holding herself together by threads we can’t see.
So I squeeze her hand. Just once.
She doesn’t pull away.
Silas is halfway through a dramatic retelling of some drunken escapade involving a goat, a bet, and a pair of enchanted trousers when I feel her thumb brush over the back of my hand.
The tankard I’m holding tilts dangerously, sloshing ale down my sleeve. I swear, I’m a goddamn Sin, a walking embodiment of sloth and chaos, and yet one soft stroke from her thumb and I’m seconds away from setting the whole tavern on fire just to see her look at me like that again.
She doesn’t glance my way. Doesn’t react. Just keeps sipping her drink like she didn’t just send heat screaming through my veins with a single touch.
“Luna,”I whisper across the bond, voice low, intimate. Like a secret tucked behind her ear.“If you keep doing that, I’mgonna embarrass myself in front of the whole damn room.”
Her pulse flutters beneath my fingers. I feel it. The hitch in her breath. The way her thighs shift subtly beneath the table, knees bumping into mine. She doesn’t pull back.
“You’re already embarrassing,”she says back dryly, the bond thick with humor—but I catch the ripple of heat beneath it, the spark she’s trying to hide.
“You know,”I murmur, tilting my head just enough to pretend I’m interested in Silas’ story while letting my words slip into her mind like smoke,“if I didn’t have an audience, I’d already be under this table. Mouth on your thigh. Tasting the way you laugh.”
She chokes on her drink.
Silas looks up. “Everything alright, my queen?”
Luna waves him off, coughing once. “Fine. Just forgot you existed for a second.
“Rude,” Silas gasps, clutching his heart.
I grin behind my mug, swallowing down my own laugh. Her fingers haven’t moved. They’re still wrapped around mine, grip tightening.
“Say the word,”I whisper through the bond.“And I’ll drag you upstairs, bend you over that old oak bed, and remind you who’s already inside you.”
She doesn’t respond—not with words.
But her nails dig into my hand.
And that? That’s enough to make my cock throb behind the cloth of my pants like I’m some pathetic boy with a crush. Which, to be fair, I am. Except I’ve already tasted her. I’ve already heard the sound she makes when she falls apart for me. And it’s that memory I’m clinging to now, as I try—desperately—not to fucking lose it while Silas is asking the barmaid for more of the house ale.
I lean closer, let my shoulder brush hers. Our bodies angled away from the others, just enough to keep this moment hidden. Sacred.
“You want me tonight, little sin?”I ask, voice velvet in her bloodstream.“Say yes, and I’ll ruin your pretty mouth before you can beg me to stop.”
Her thigh presses tighter against mine.
Luna
The ale is good—sharp, spiced, ancient in a way that feels like it’s been steeped in blood and secrets—but it’s not what makes my head float off my shoulders.
It’s Elias.
His hand left mine a few minutes ago. I noticed the absence immediately—my skin cold where he’d been pressed against me. I thought maybe he’d gotten bored, or distracted, or lazy. All the things he pretends to be.
But then I feel it. The weight of his palm on my thigh. Warm, deliberate. Not moving, just resting there like it belongs. And maybe it does. Maybe he always has.
It’s the slow glide of his thumb now, the way it circles just above the inside of my knee, the subtle pressure that makes my bones ache. He’s doing something else, somethingwrong. My heartbeat isn’t syncing with the rhythm of the room anymore. It’s…off. Stretching. Like the moment is elongating, pulling taut around where his hand is. A cocoon of warped time, woven just for us. No one notices. Not even Silas, who’s currently attempting to sing a very tragic rendition of a sea shanty about goat milk and love lost in the cliffs of Draymourn.
Elias doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t smile or wink or act out like he usually does when he wants attention. He keeps his expression dry, disinterested. But I can feel his focus, the razor-sharp edges of it carving me open beneath the table.
My mouth goes dry. I take a sip of ale and nearly choke because I can’t drink andbreatheandpretendat the same time. Not with him touching me like that. Not when he’s using magic—his sloth, his gift, his damnation—to bend the seconds like thread, stretch this single graze into a lifetime of slow-burning torment.