Page 92

Because I need her to master this first.
“You’ll feel tired after,” I warn, pulling back from her slowly, like peeling off a second skin. “The first time always leaves a mark.”
She smiles—barely—but it’s there. That wicked, secret thing she only gives to me when she’s proud. “So that’s what you feel like in my head?”
I blink, caught off guard. “Excuse me?”
“I thought it’d be colder,” she says, turning from me like she didn’t just brand me alive with that sentence. “But it’s… warm. Slow. Addictive.”
She walks ahead of me, already stronger, already different.
And I’m the one stuck standing still—because she just describedmelike a fuckingdrug.
Silas calls from the hallway something about sandwiches or shirtless combat or whatever chaos he’s invented this time.
But I stay still a moment longer, letting her pull me with her even when she doesn’t mean to.
Even gods don’t move unless she wants them to.
I feel it—before she says a word. That tug on the bond.
It’s not a call. Not a plea. It’scuriosity,wrapped in golden thread and laced with something dangerously close to awe. I follow it instinctively, barefoot across broken stone and half-rebuilt marble, like a moth to the one flame that doesn’t burn me—just scorches everything else.
She’s in the courtyard still, barefoot too, dress wrinkled from hours of movement, a smear of dust down her thigh that she hasn’t noticed. The power in her shimmers just under the surface, static and golden and too damn new. Her back is to me, but I know she knows I’m here.
“I felt something,” she says without turning. “Just now. Like something cracked open.”
I step closer, slow enough not to spook her, but close enough that the bond pulls taut between us again—like gravity but moreintentional.
“It was me,” I say. “Or more accurately… it was you catching what spilled out of me.”
She turns then, brows drawn. “That’s not how you said it worked.”
I almost smile. “Because you’re thinking about it like a siphon. Like you’re pullingfromus. But that’s not what the bond is, Luna. Not really.”
Her eyes narrow, focused. The way she looks at me sometimes—like I’m a puzzle shewantsto be complicated.
I exhale, rolling my neck before I keep going. “You’re not a thief. You’re a vessel. A cage. A storm cellar.”
“That doesn’t sound flattering.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.” I step in front of her now, hands sliding into my pockets because if I touch her while I say this, I won’t finish it. “You’re not supposed totakeour powers. You’re meant tocontainthem. When we’re unbalanced. When it spills.”
I glance down at my hands. They’re steady now.Toosteady. “Sloth isn’t dormant. It’s corrosive. You think it just slows me down? Try living inside a loop of time where every second drags like a blade. Try wanting to stop the world so badly you accidentallydo.”
She flinches. Not from fear. Fromunderstanding.
“And that’s what I’m catching?”
“Not all of it. Not unless you want it. But the excess? The overflow?” I nod, stepping closer, just enough that she has to tilt her head to keep my gaze. “It would unravel reality if it had nowhere to go. But you—” I pause. “You take it. Hold it. Ground it.”
She swallows, throat working around the weight of what I’m saying. Her voice is soft. “So I’m a prison.”
“No.” I say it too quickly. Too forcefully. I drop my gaze. “You’re asanctuary.”
The words come before I can stop them. Honest. Unguarded.
Fuck.