Page 13 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

This cell is a fucking joke. I mean, really.

No chains. No iron. No spelled shackles wrapped around my wrists, no symbols of power carved into the stone to keep me in check.

Nothing so crude as the things they’ve had to use on Wrath over the years, nothing so brutal as the bindings meant for Lucien when he was particularly insufferable.

Which, let’s be honest, is always.

I stretch out my legs, lounging back against the velvet-covered chaise, because of course these dramatic, egotistical bastards would put me in a cell that looks like a high-end fucking suite instead of an actual prison.

The walls are deep obsidian, but not cold, smooth to the touch, humming with something ancient, something woven into the very fabric of this place. The Void is a living thing, and this room? It breathes with it.

The furniture is absurd.

A massive, canopied bed with silk sheets the color of rich merlot, too luxurious to be anything other than an insult.

A bookshelf lined with old tomes, some of which I swear were stolen from Daemon Academy’s restricted archives.

A desk, sleek and black, scattered with ink and parchment, like they expect me to journal my captivity.

And the mirrors. Dozens of them. Lining the walls, hanging from the ceiling, resting on every available surface.

That’s how they keep me here. Not with chains or locks or magic spells, but with my nature.

Because I’m Envy.

And what’s the one thing Envy can’t resist?

Looking.

Wanting. Watching what I cannot touch.

I stare at the mirrors, each one showing me different things.

One flickers between visions of the past, images of things I was never meant to see, Luna, curled in her bed before she knew what she was, before she was ours, dreaming of a life she could never have.

Another holds the present, a view of Lucien and Elias, their expressions grim, their movements precise as they track me through the Void, still too far, still too fucking slow.

And the worst one, the mirror directly across from me, shows her.

Luna.

My Sin-Binder.

My undoing.

She doesn’t know she’s in my line of sight, doesn’t know that every twitch of her fingers, every shift of her expression, every breath she exhales is something I can see but never touch.

Which is why this works.

Because I won’t leave.

Not when I can watch her instead.

The Sub-Sins knew exactly how to keep me docile.

And fuck them for it.

I grin at the mirror like a certified lunatic.

"Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite hallucination," I drawl, stretching out on the ridiculously comfortable chaise like the world's most glamorous hostage. "I gotta say, babe, you look stunning today. Is that murder in your eyes, or are you just happy to see me?"

Luna, or rather, the version of her trapped in this cursed mirror bullshit, doesn't respond. Obviously.

But that doesn’t stop me from talking.

Because I have been alone in this fucking room for three days, and the only entertainment I’ve had is watching her move through the Void, feeling her getting closer, the bond tugging at me like a leash, like a promise, like a goddamn lifeline.

And it is making me feral.

So I prop an elbow up, rest my chin on my palm, and continue my descent into madness.

"I'm thinking of running at you full speed when you get here," I muse, watching the way she moves, unaware of my gaze. "Very dramatic. A sweeping, romantic reunion. Maybe I'll dip you." I tilt my head. "No, wait. You'll probably punch me. Fair. Maybe I'll let you. Just one. For the dramatics."

I pause, considering.

"But only if it's a sexy punch. You know, one of those meaningful ones." I tap my chin. "God, I’ve missed you. It’s disgusting. I hate it. Come save me faster."

The mirror flickers, distorting for a second before realigning.

I squint.

"Are you… with Elias?" My voice dips dangerously low..

I sit up, scowling at the image, watching her on horseback with him, watching the way she leans forward and I snarl, jabbing a finger at the glass. "Excuse me, Miss Evernight, but your Sin of Envy would like to file a fucking complaint."

The mirror remains silent. Which is probably for the best. Because if Luna was here, she'd be smirking, calling me out on my bullshit, telling me I have no right to be pissed when I’m the one locked up in a luxury cage of my own damn sin.

But still.

Still.

"You know," I continue, smirking despite myself, "the moment you step in here, you're mine again. I hope you know that."

The mirror flickers, showing me the moment she stiffens, like she heard me, like she felt me through our bond.

And my smirk widens.

Because oh, she is coming.

And I will never let her go again.

I groan dramatically, letting my head loll back against the ridiculously plush chair. "Ugh. You again?"

The door creaks ominously, but I don’t even bother looking. I know who it is.

The big bad Sub-Sin himself.

"To what do I owe the displeasure, Severin?

" I sigh, stretching my legs out like I own the place.

"Here to monologue? Gloat? Tell me how I'm just a poor, lost little Sin who doesn’t know his place?

" I let my head roll to the side lazily, cracking an eye open to watch him.

"I love those. They’re my favorite bedtime stories. "

Severin steps inside, the light flickering over his sharp features. He’s always brooding, like someone took a grudge, poured it into a body, and gave it knives for hands.

He doesn’t look at me, though.

No.

He looks at the mirrors.

And I bite back a smirk.

Because those mirrors? They only show him what I want him to see. Which means right now, he’s probably staring at his own glorious, scowling face.

"Still enjoying your accommodations, Envy?" Severin asks, his voice bored as he drags a slow glance over my too-nice prison, the dark velvet, the ever-burning candles, the gold- inlaid flooring, the literal throne I’ve been using as a footrest. "I expected you to start clawing at the walls by now."

I snort, lounging back deeper into the chair. "What can I say? You really rolled out the red carpet for me, Sev. A king-sized bed, mood lighting, a throne? I half-expected a bottle of wine and a welcome basket."

Severin does not look amused.

Which is precisely why I keep going.

"You know," I continue, tapping my chin, "I think I should be losing my mind right about now. I should be pacing, growling, throwing a fit." I smirk, watching him from under my lashes. "But I’m not, am I?"

Severin stills.

And I see it, the flicker of unease he tries to hide behind all that cold, ruthless control.

Because he knows what I am. I am envy, and envy is nothing but hunger wearing a pretty face. I do not like being caged, but I also do not like being denied what’s mine.

I hum, tilting my head. "What’s wrong, Sev? Getting nervous?"

Severin finally turns, pinning me with that black-hole stare of his.

"You think she’ll save you," he says quietly.

I grin, sharp and vicious.

"I don’t think, Sev." I feel the bond flare, alive, electric, undeniable. "I know."

Severin doesn't flinch, doesn’t snarl, doesn’t lash out like most would when faced with something they don’t want to admit.

He just stands there, quiet and watchful, and that makes it all the more satisfying when I let my power coil through the room, seeping into the cracks of his stone-faced composure like venom through a wound.

“Careful, Sev,” I murmur, leaning forward, elbows braced against my knees, chin resting on my clasped hands. “You’re starting to look a little… human.”

His gaze sharpens, but I don’t stop. Because I feel it. The thing he won’t say out loud, the ache buried so deep inside him he’s convinced himself it isn’t there.

But it is. And I can taste it. Envy is a hunger, an open, gnawing thing that never sleeps. I am made of wanting, of reaching, of starving, and Severin, oh, Severin, he is a feast all on his own.

He thinks he wants power. He thinks he wants revenge. He thinks he wants to burn the world to its knees. But I know better.

The air in the room warps. A slow, insidious shift as the mirrors along the walls ripple, their surfaces bending not to reflect, but to reveal.

Severin stills. And then he sees her.

Not Luna. Not quite. But close enough.

A woman stands within the glass, her image flickering, grainy like a memory that’s never quite clear. She has Luna’s blood, but not her face. Her hair is longer, darker. Her mouth softer. Her eyes wrong in a way that tells him, not yet.

Not her.

But something inside him still pulls.

Severin’s jaw tightens.

“I wonder…” I hum, tilting my head, letting the words slither slow and saccharine from my tongue. “What do you see when you look at her, Severin? Is it control?” I tap my fingers against the arm of the chair. “Or is it something else?”

The glass warps again, distorting, and for a single, shattering second, I feel it.

His envy. Not of me. Not of Luna. Not of power. But of something smaller. Softer.

Love.

Severin shatters the mirror.

His fist collides with the glass so hard it explodes outward in a rain of fractured silver, shards cutting his knuckles, embedding deep, but he doesn’t feel it. Because this isn’t pain. This is denial. This is rage, curling in on itself like a dying star.

He turns on me, slow, controlled, a blade gliding from its sheath.

I just smile.

“Oh, Sev,” I purr, syrupy and cruel. “You really should work on your projections.”

Severin should know better. He should know. I’m not Lucien, full of cold, calculated arrogance. I’m not Riven, a living embodiment of a blade, honed and vicious. I’m not Ambrose, who bleeds greed like a dragon coiled over his hoard.

I am envy, the thing that slithers beneath every other sin, feeding them, twisting them, making them ugly and insatiable. And unlike Severin, I don’t pretend I’m above it.

Which is why I laugh when he lifts his hand, shadows curling around his fingers like living ink, twisting in the air with a kind of careful, controlled precision that tells me.

He’s actually trying.

How cute.

"You think that's going to work?" I say, stretching my arms above my head, flexing my fingers. "After all this time, Sev? After everything?"

His lips curl back, feral, and the void itself shudders under his will.

The shadows explode forward, coiling and snapping like a hundred hungry maws, twisting toward me so fast the air distorts around them, a vacuum of power collapsing in on itself.

And I grin. Because I don’t need to dodge. I don’t need to block. I don’t need to do a damn thing.

Except take it.

Severin’s power surges into me, a relentless, all-consuming force meant to crush, to obliterate, to leave nothing in its wake. It slams into my chest like a battering ram,

And I devour it.

The envy in me howls, the thing that is both hunger and need and bottomless abyss, opening wide and drinking him down. The moment his magic touches me, I feel it warp, twisting into something else, something mine, something better.

Severin jerks back, eyes narrowing.

"That’s not- "

"Not fair?" I finish for him, flexing my fingers, feeling his power slither over my skin like an echo of him. "I don’t play fair, Sev. Never have, never will."

I throw his power back at him, amplified, distorted, dripping with my own brand of corruption.

And he feels it.

His longing twisted back against him. The need to take, to consume, to have everything and everyone bend to his will, except this time, the longing is mine.

For one sharp, blistering second, his control wavers. I see it in the way his breath catches. The way his stance shifts. The way his eyes flash, rage tangled with something darker.

I stalk forward, slow, deliberate, pushing him back with every lazy step.

"You still don’t get it, do you?" I say, tilting my head. "You and your little exiled freak show spent all these years obsessing over revenge. About getting back what was taken from you. But Sev…" I lean in, dropping my voice to a whisper.

"You can’t take what was never yours."

His shadows lash out again, desperate, angry, frantic, and I laugh, catching them in my hands like they're nothing more than smoke and wishes.