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“Still a terrible idea, but okay, sure, let’s get murdered today.”
He sighs, turns to me, and scratches the back of his neck. “She says she wants to see if she can pull it out. The bond. If she threads hers through yours, she might be able to force Branwen out.”
My mouth goes dry.
“You’ll kill yourself,” I snap.
Silas shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first time one of us tried.”
Luna’s hand brushes his arm.
He softens immediately.
Godsdamn them both.
“Tell her no,” I growl. “Tell her to stay the hell away from me. Branwen isinme. If Luna gets too close, Branwen will feel her through me.”
“She knows that,” Silas says. “She’s not trying to save you, Lucien. She’s trying toseveryou.”
He steps back, voice light again, but his eyes stay locked on mine.
“And, buddy, I don’t think she’ll ask twice.”
“She’s stupid if she thinks she can sever a fated bond.” The words leave my mouth like a curse, low and lethal, and for a heartbeat, I don’t care who hears them.
Silas blinks, his smile faltering for the first time in what feels like centuries. He shifts his weight, expression unreadable now, like maybe for once he’s unsure if this is something he can joke through.
Luna doesn't move. Doesn’t flinch. She just watches me, lips parted like she wants to speak, like she’d carve through the marrow of me if she thought it might save me.
Godsdamn her for it.
“Lucien—” Silas starts, but I cut him off.
“No. You want me to stand here and pretend this is noble? That letting her dig her power through my veins, into somethingBranwen already touched, is going tosaveme?” I take a step closer, my voice sharpening. “This isn’t a fairytale, Silas. You don’t sever a bond like this. You die with it.”
She still doesn’t speak. I hate that. Hate that she can’t because of me. Because Branwen turned me into a listening device, a weapon dressed in loyalty I never gave.
Luna reaches out, palm brushing Silas’s shoulder. She leans in and whispers something again. His brows raise and then he exhales, slow and heavy.
“She says,” Silas says, tone unusually careful, “she knows it won’t work. But she has to try. Not because she thinks you’ll thank her for it, or because she wants to be the hero in your story—she says this is her fucking story too. And she won’t have Branwen rewriting it through you.”
A chill moves up my spine—not from fear. From recognition.
That’s what makes her dangerous. Not her magic. Not the way she pulls us in without even trying. It’s her defiance. Her refusal to yield even when the odds are carved in blood. She doesn’t want to save me. She wants towin.
“Tell her no.”
Silas shifts. “Lucien—”
“No.” My gaze snaps to hers. “You touch this bond and Branwen will feel it. And then we’ll all befucked.”
Luna's face doesn’t fall. She doesn’t shrink. Instead, she steps forward. Not close—she knows better—but enough to make her presence hit me like a gale to a flame. Her bond pulses under the surface like a second heartbeat, restrained, suffocating.
I know what she’s thinking. I’ve known it since the first moment she looked at me like I wasn’t a monster. She’ll try anyway.
And that terrifies me more than anything Branwen could do.
Because if she threads her bond through mine, she won’t just brush against the rot Branwen left behind—she’lllinkwith it.And Luna, for all her power, doesn’t understand what it means to be bound to a Sin not by choice, but byfate warped and wielded by someone else’s hands.